EM

Red Road Flats, Glasgow, March 2001

from Glasgow Sonnets

A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses
puff briefly and subside. Play-fortresses
of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash.
Four storeys have no windows left to smash,
but the fifth a chipped sill buttresses
mother and daughter the last mistresses
of that black block condemned to stand, not crash.
Around them the cracks deepen, the rats crawl.
The kettle whimpers on a crazy hob.
Roses of mould grow from ceiling to wall.
The man lies late since he has lost his job,
smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall
thinly into an air too poor to rob.

You are looking for more Sonnets by Edwin Morgan? - Then have a look at his books, please!

Glasgow Sonnet No° 1 was quoted from:

Collected Poems, Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1990, p. 289.

The poem is part of Glasgow Sonnets, a sequence of 10 sonnets, numbered i to x, which was originally published in 1972 by Castlelaw Press, West Linton.

However, it was reprinted in:

From Glasgow to Saturn, Cheadle: Carcanet Press, 1973.

Poems of Thirty Years, Manchester: Carcanet New Press, 1982, p. 283.

Selected Poems, Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1985, p. 78.

Collected Poems, Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1990, p. 289.

New Selected Poems, Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2000, p. 82.

Both, Collected Poems and New Selected Poems, are still available directly at Carcanet Press Ltd., and any bookshop or online bookshop.

The copyright of the poem recited remains with Edwin Morgan and Carcanet Press Ltd.; it may not be copied or distributed without the express permission of both, the author and the publisher.

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