Shellfish and Umbrellas

Lucid and moving are words which may well describe what lies between the cover. However, Steven Porter darkens the pages with a sense of the oblique, be it moments of joy or scenes of longing. Here relationships unfurl, side by side with an occasion of passing through; moreover his lines are rooted in place and belonging, particularly in deliberations between a sun-splashed Spain and the rain and misted Northeast of Scotland. And ‘Poetry Rules’, he implies, ‘it pollinates our libraries’. Within these oft wry narratives lies the profound, from one who’ll ‘renounce the Age of Snow’ and proffer the revolution to be ‘half-price on a Monday afternoon’, for a small cost that makes for a satisfying read any day.

Bringing in the Morning

Night crept in on slippered feet,
a faint knock knock
on the cottage door.

She thrust fierce dirty rain at a barn in shadow,
and decked in black
shook pine and oak near to a throttling.

Hours out of luck,
thud awaiting thud
on a clock’s dull pulse.

A rooster, eyelids locked,
dreamt of never
as a calf heaved clear

of his mother’s hooves.
And morning — a fist unfolded —
gave light to two round eyes.

Steven Porter was born in Inverness and lives in Corunna, Spain. He is a journalist, teacher and translator. His poems often reflect experiences in Northern Scotland, Edinburgh and Spain, where he has lived and travelled widely since 1998. More info and writing at: www.myspace.com/stevenjporter.