The River of Me
I launched myself on the river me
Way back when I was two or three
I sailed out through the wall of snow
Beneath the bridge where all kids go
That Cheyenne Bodie was ten feet tall
His voice so deep it filled a hall
And that was who I dreamed I’d be
Until Cochise came on the scene
There was ice on the river and ice on the pond
And the singing nun sang on and on
There were trees on the river bank, cliffs by the sea
And fish galore in the river of me
The fields were full of cows, corn or wheat
The air was thick with bees and heat
The summer lasted all year long
I never knew til it was gone
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poem by Jim Hogg
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The Old Lane Through The Woods
There’s a track through the trees from the White to the Black
that I walked as a kid and I often went back.
Now the years slip away and the distances grow,
but if time gives us time and we get to change tack
if the notion should take you then I’d gladly go:
in wildest November before winter’s trance,
at the height of the spring when the daffodils dance.
We could stand on the bank where the rhodies convene,
like the first of our kind who looked down on that scene,
on a loch with no name, with no castles around,
or old burial ground of the meek and the mean;
though the rich bled the poor, by the sod they’re all bound.
Or we’ll maybe just stay on the old woodland road
and head north to the Black with the odd jumping toad.
There a whole constellation of things we can view.
In the summer there’s herons and sometimes deer too,
and there’s dodging and weaving through armies of leaves.
Though the foxgloves are rare I’ll find one just for you,
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poem by Jim Hogg
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The Gates of Innocence
Up round St John Street we walked one night, while moonlight brightly glowed,
My arm around you, yours round me, with two friends long ago.
So deep into love’s old sweet dream in moments now long flown,
And like a leaf upon the breeze my heart was not my own.
Oh the road to winning you was fraught, with quicksands all the way.
I sank and swam, I walked and ran, I wooed you night and day,
To simply hold your hand so soft, or gaze on eyes so blue,
In steep green fields at Clachanmore when I worked next to you.
But no moon nor love could quite foresee that I would wriggle free,
Against my heart, against my will, somewhat regretfully.
The roads we walked were soon to part, to sever us for ill,
To leave the Crescent we once walked, to ghosts that haunt me still.
Now the thoughts that circle round me here, they strengthen with the night.
As if the years have fallen to that young love’s breathless might,
Your eyes beguiled the doubting stars and left me void of sense,
Before the moments we fell through, the gates of innocence.
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poem by Jim Hogg
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song - Sand and Stone
I saw you in a magazine
Pouring tea for the elderly
Juggling snowballs by theTweed
And running miles for charity
Your hair was brown and curly still
Falling just like it used to do
When we climbed the rolling hill
In spring way back in sev’nty two
(chorus)
Winter winds and summer haze,
looking out to sea
‘cross that high-way of our lives,
all that gravity
All that ebb and flow,
across the sand and stone
We will not make it home again
to share the salty wind
To hold each other just once more,
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poem by Jim Hogg
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Kincardine Bridge
I should have known the time would come
Sometimes emotions make no sense
I knew too well you were the one
Our love was always so intense
I tried to run, you tracked me down
And cornered me with all my dreams
I tried to hide but you'd bring round
A love that conjured all my fears
In Armadale and Whitburn town
We drank beneath the bloodstained roof
I played with all my cards face down
Your brother checked my eyes for proof
All through September we made love
Like making war against all doubt
But doubt was never real for us
It's just that I saw no way out
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poem by Jim Hogg
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Old Ha's Fire
Old Ha (younger than we are now I’m sure)
Would carry out the boxes and papers each week
And empty corn beef tins which never burned
To build a sizeable fire in the county yard:
A sprawling outpost of abandoned decades
Army huts and council stores with broken windows
Estranged from that modern world of the sixties
Irrelevant to the flux we chased and played in then
He’d heap the rubbish up and scratch the box
And if the wind was in the west, kneel to the job
The papers would flicker and the liquid flames
Poured back and forth across pages and edges
Until it gained the upper hand. Slowly, the spreading heat
Would capture us, as we huddled together up wind
And gazed, into the dancing kaleidoscope
Bewitched by a primitive secret, hidden
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poem by Jim Hogg
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By The Red Brick Wall
Immune to age was how it looked,
as if the books of time were cooked,
to those with luck enough to share
some part of you. Your 40s hair
and filmstar looks had me well hooked
from the start. I tried not to stare
and to play it cool and free, but,
a rising flame and rising fear
saw me rambling on like a nut-
job through the words you had to hear.
And not one eyelid did you bat
as you took my hand and we sat
on the steps of the old school gym,
you in grey and white and me in
another world, a Cheshire cat
in cream so deep I had to swim.
And so it stayed for months on end.
But all of us who wanted you,
we had no sense of time back then.
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poem by Jim Hogg
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song - Crammag Light
The winter winds are blowin in from Ireland ‘cross the sea
I’m waiting on the pierhead here just watching seagulls wheel
The light is going down now and I’m thinking of the night
When you sailed out from this harbour wall down past Crammag light
The years have passed so slowly since I watched you sail away
I wonder if you’re on the waves still fishing night and day
The tourists have all gone now and I’m by the fireside
In the flames I see you sailing off down past Crammag light
(chorus)
Oh Johnny are you never coming back to Logan Bay
The harbour bell is silent now but seabirds on the wing
Are calling out to everywhere, above the breaking waves
But the only song that I can hear is the song the winter sings
Oh Johnny are you never coming back to Logan Bay
Remember when we stood upon the cliff at logan head
The sea was like a mill pond and the sun was setting red
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poem by Jim Hogg
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Interpretation
And they cannot be recaptured except
in this mind, in all of the universe.
It’s what old men do while they still can,
A substitute for all that they can’t:
repeated flights to unseen glories
they once passed through too hurriedly.
Each has his own specific details,
of commonly haunted ecstacies
we like to believe are beyond compare,
and too much with us to ever release.
Mine were simple things:
the creaking of a certain window frame -
no, there was more than that.
The bedroom light was the first sign.
It flicked on and a sudden surge
of wattage shot through me.
Seconds later, darkness
and I’d have to wait
‘til the window creaked
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poem by Jim Hogg
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song - The Primrose and the Knife
Whilst onward flows the River Cart
And forward flees time’s silent dart
The loves and hopes o’ men abide
As constant as the throbbing tide
Oor tenure here is fleeting tho’
Brief as the swirlin’ flake o’ snow
An’ dreams, oh dreams, they carry us
Beyond the stars, then bury us
The future’s sweet talk turns tae snash
A moment precious, then we’re ash
We walk a tightrope through this life
Between the primrose and the knife
Between the eagle and the louse
Between the vixen and the yowes
We’re in the wind, we’re in the wave
Bright as sunlight, dark as the cave
I’ve worn the holy cross of love
I’ve drawn the killing arrow back
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poem by Jim Hogg
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