In Which the Capercaillie Ceilidhs On
Oh, I know where I’m going, stick with me,
though it’s going to be a bumpy ride,
fossicking, frolicking, high and low.
Lovely dark islands and all that folksy jazz
and we’ll remain, remain, remain
as one, at the very least in tune, on song.
And when we reach Oban the dram’s on me.
In Which No Spree is Free
For a quintal of pepper you sold your sultanate,
a London freehold for champagne
and chips at Blacks. Still, what is three ducados
in the greater scheme of things?
What weight a soul, what ransoming.
The same old same old,
give it back: I’m sorry I grew tired of it.
In Which Left Well Alone is Worse
Dream more, Mr Wormold. No correspondence
will be entered into here.
Crack on, crack on, there’s much to be done,
and you don’t know the half of it,
what we have left undone
and the sine qua non, the sin of omission,
that rattlesnake fact – unexamined, turning, biting back.
In Which No Fair Exchange
The rouble falls, the yen is shaken, and the baht’s
a leaky boat. The feeble rand
is rumbled yet again. Babe, I’d borrow
on the strength of our tomorrows,
but my rack-rent heart’s already mortgaged to the hilt
and the downgrade’s unavoidable. Still,
it’s better than it was – back in the which old days back when?
Isobel Dixon’s fourth collection Bearings is published by Modjaji in South Africa and Nine Arches in the UK, along with re-issues of A Fold in the Map and The Tempest Prognosticator (later in 2016). Mariscat published her new pamphlet, The Leonids, in August 2016. www.isobeldixon.com
new boots and pantisocracies 