Yesterday regailed all spectators present with the goodness of Folkadot an excellent folk music night on the first Wednesday of every month at the Green Note in Camden. I was there for the tunes, and to see my dear friend the VW read poetry while on his visit from Edinburgh. Excited puppy that I am, I feel I should tell you that Ryan has recently landed a job as the Scottish Library's Reader in Residence, which is no surprise considering the goodness of his writing. There are many pages turned down at the corner in the collection of his work that he gave me, but this one is probably my favourite, his poem that stuck with me the most. It's called "Coins":
I watched her put on clothes and then
drifted back to sleep
with my shovel, dirt and old friends
It was not a nightmare,
just a thought,
I am digging graves
I am pulling coins from the eyes
of the dead.
I recognize old college roommates,
coffee shop girls, Sunday friends,
poets, the first vegetarian I ever met, the runner who quit the team,
the pot-bellied boy who helped me steal the beers.
I have buried them all.
I buy high profile stocks and bonds with the currency of
friends who are now dead to me.
When it started, I used to cry. My eyelids were the wings of flies.
I knew, floods would come, like history,
to erase us all.
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