Ministry of Congregational Singing

Poems from Edinburgh

Each of these poems was written during a three month stay in Edinburgh, Scotland in the spring of 2002.

Kissed By Kitcsh

Nessie, they call her,

the girl monster of the loch.

The shelves are lined with her;

the six inch size..

the nine inch size..

the twelve inch size..

the jumbo economy size.

She’s green, that natural monster color.

Not gravestone-moss green,

not Celtic green,

not rain-stained graffiti green,

but Loch Ness monster green...

With a smile.

And a tartan cap.

She has us outnumbered,

because winter tourists are few,

but she is legion.

I want to hate it,

so I can be above it.

But I don’t.

There’s something in us

that wants to face our monster,

and be kissed by kitsch.

February 20, 2002

© 2002 John Thornburg

On Hearing the Organ at York

Legion have been the notes

that soaked into this ancient stone.

Each one flew free, had its own life,

escaping muffled imprisonment.

My ears captured just a few,

but since their nature is to soar,

I could not hold them,

but surrendered them to other ears,

even those who will not view them as sublime.

Then, after they dance to exhaustion,

they come to be encased,

filling the pores of this ancient stone,

so that their future cousins

can bounce

and dance

their own sublimity.

February 26, 2002

© 2002 John Thornburg

Big Sheila*

She lived in a multi,

thirty floors of humanity,

or what passed for it.

She had friends as big as she was,

if big means larger than life.

The Most Ignorant Woman in the World,

the One-Woman Crowd,

the Submarine Commander,

the Weasel,

Wullie the Tortoise,

Barkin Doagie,

the Mathematician.

She wore a black, fuzzy Cossack hat.

She used it to shoplift at Safeway.

Stuffed a frozen chicken in it one day

and put it back on.

Lots of people shopping

and it was hot in the store.

So she’s about to check out,

with a kind of chicken-based sweat

rolling down her forehead.

The young assistant manager comes over.

There’s a new customer satisfaction initiative going on.

“Can I help you, madam?

You appear to be in some distress.”

“No, I’m awright. It’s just a little hot in here.”

“Perhaps if you removed your hat..”

And she was gone,

livers and all.

*Big Sheila is one of the characters sketched in Bill Duncan’s anecdotal account of modern Dundee, Scotland, The Smiling School for Calvinists.

March 2002

Automatic Eyebrows

They slipped into the sixth pew on the left

where they always sit.

They look alike.

They didn’t when they married,

but they do now.

Their hair lines are the same.

Curls and grey flecks just alike.

They both fidget with the hymn book.

Pick it up.

Put in down.

Open it to the first hymn.

Forget what they’ve done.

Close it.

Start over again.

Study the bulletin..

as though it’s in Russian.

Eyebrows pumping.

Bringing recognition up from the

wells of memory.

Or maybe it’s nerves.