Poem of the month: Roddy Lumsden

Published on Wednesday 24 June 2009 14:53

Roddy Lumsden's fifth collection, the humorous and beguiling Third Wish Wasted (Bloodaxe Books, £7.95), takes a foray into new and more musical territory, and concerns itself with our wishes and desires.

"Quietus", the book's last poem, ponders the third wish wasted; richly regretful, with midnight and wine and lengthening shadows, it speaks seductively of the magic and of everything that has come before.

Quietus

Where the brook runs to rust

and the torched charabancs lord the wheat

my shadow lengthens

And in the lanes and pits

of the parched city in the night's mid-night

my mood will quicken

And though not lost

my tongue will sicken for wine and wit

so long since tasted

The songs and slurs of cats

will jinx the air as I walk the limit

my third wish wasted

You can borrow Third Wish Wasted (Bloodaxe, 2009) from the Scottish Poetry Library, tel: [phone], e-mail [e-mail] or visit www.spl.org.uk.