Mischief Night

by Lumsden, Roddy

• ISBN13: 9781852246723
• ISBN10: 1852246723
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-15
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Summary

"Throughout Mischief Night the rhymes, The larks, The brutal punch-lines tug Lumsden's poems off the page and into the living context they describe." - Verse

Author Biography

Roddy Lumsden is one of the liveliest and most inventive poets writing in Britain today. From the formal, frenetic debut Yeah Yeah Yeah, through the playful wit and cynicism of The Book of Love, to the 'magnificent song to himself' of Roddy Lumsden is Dead, his poetic journey has already been eventful and he remains fascinated by the intrigues of men and women and the short steps from real life to folklore to the surreal

Table of Contents

The Drowning Man
The Tremendous Few	p. 14
Charcoal Sketch	p. 15
What Love Cannot Do	p. 16
Miss Hollington's Notes	p. 17
Us	p. 18
Q	p. 19
Rain at Night	p. 20
The Knack	p. 21
The Waitresses	p. 22
Sorry	p. 23
Life Story	p. 24
Moments of Terror	p. 25
Fear of Music	p. 26
Second Prayer	p. 28
For Jesus	p. 29
Letter From an Admirer	p. 30
The Bath in Milk	p. 31
The Drowning Man	p. 32
Between Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night	p. 33
The Deaths of Imaginary Friends	p. 34
Moments of Pleasure	p. 35
Still	p. 36
Turning into Grizzly Street	p. 37
From the Valentine Studio	p. 38
Cover Versions	p. 41
On the Cusp of Virgo and Libra	p. 42
Specific Hunger	p. 43
Perfumes of Scotland	p. 44
Conspiracy Sketch	p. 45
True Believers	p. 46
Miss America	p. 47
One Acre Yard	p. 48
from The Bubble Bride (2003)
Sang o' the Kittock's Loddie	p. 50
A Saltire	p. 52
Hotel Showers of the World	p. 53
The Kitchens: A Guided Tour	p. 54
On the Boat-slope	p. 55
The Bubble Bride	p. 56
Spent	p. 57
Lateral Vertigo	p. 58
Overhead in a Scottish Larder	p. 59
Lumsden Hotel	p. 60
Little Fife	p. 61
Evidence of Owls	p. 62
from Roddy Lumsden is Dead (2003)
Roddy Lumsden Is Dead
My Pain	p. 65
My Death	p. 66
My Funeral	p. 66
My Post-mortem	p. 67
My Reptilian Existence	p. 68
My True Love	p. 68
My Allegory	p. 69
My Early Years	p. 69
My Hormones	p. 70
My Dark Side	p. 71
My Last Supper	p. 71
My Complex	p. 72
My Water	p. 73
My National Stigma	p. 73
My Limbo	p. 74
My Face Not Fitting	p. 75
My Half-life	p. 75
My Sex Life	p. 76
My Ascent	p. 77
My Descent	p. 77
My Superstition	p. 78
My Luck	p. 79
My Reflection	p. 79
My Sickness	p. 80
My Performance	p. 80
My Realm of the Senses	p. 81
My Plea	p. 81
My Meeting with the Goddess	p. 82
My Prayer	p. 84
My Future	p. 84
My Solitude	p. 85
My Life	p. 87
My Pennyworth	p. 88
My Spring	p. 88
But Sweet
The Consolation	p. 90
Weathergirl	p. 90
Priapus	p. 91
Higher Still	p. 91
The Shortcut	p. 92
Song	p. 92
Song	p. 93
Escher	p. 93
The Wish	p. 94
The Wager	p. 94
One Thing I Do Know	p. 95
Intramuros	p. 95
Simpatika	p. 96
The Drop of a Hat	p. 96
from The Book of Love (2000)
Incident in a Filing Cupboard	p. 98
Because	p. 99
An Older Woman	p. 100
Love's Young Dream	p. 101
Piquant	p. 102
Always	p. 103
Marmalade	p. 104
The Twelfth Kind	p. 105
Lithium	p. 106
Voyeur	p. 107
For the Birds	p. 108
Against Naturism	p. 109
Troilism	p. 111
Proof	p. 112
Tricks for the Barmaid	p. 113
from Subject Matter	p. 114
The Beginning of the End	p. 116
Acid	p. 117
Scarlet	p. 118
An Outlying Station	p. 119
Athena	p. 120
Bellyful	p. 121
Solo	p. 122
Pagan	p. 123
Show and Tell	p. 124
Hobbledehoy	p. 125
The Man I Could Have Been	p. 126
Lullaby	p. 128
Cavoli Riscaldati
St Andrews	p. 131
Grief	p. 131
Easter	p. 132
Vena Cava	p. 132
Heatwave	p. 133
Reading the Suddenlys	p. 133
Making a Mistake	p. 134
Encraty	p. 134
What Happened Next	p. 135
Transfiguration	p. 135
Square One	p. 136
Making a Comeback	p. 136
Digitalis	p. 137
Making a Getaway	p. 137
Abacus	p. 138
Halfway Across	p. 138
Compendium	p. 139
Harm's Way	p. 139
Making a Scene	p. 140
Elsewhere Perhaps Later	p. 140
Life Means Life	p. 141
Manila	p. 141
Ether	p. 142
What We Became	p. 142
from Yeah Yeah Yeah (1997)
Then	p. 144
Sunday Morning 2.13 a.m.	p. 145
St Patrick's Day	p. 146
Manners	p. 149
Coming	p. 150
364	p. 151
Yeah Yeah Yeah	p. 152
Prayer To Be with Mercurial Women	p. 153
Trespass	p. 154
On a Promise	p. 155
Noyade	p. 156
from St James Infirmly	p. 157
After Entomology	p. 159
Cardinal	p. 160
Infighting	p. 161
Noah	p. 162
August (and Nothing After)	p. 163
Rogation	p. 164
The World's End	p. 165
Lines to a Missionary	p. 166
Mercy	p. 167
Beach Ceilidh	p. 168
ITMA	p. 169
The Boy	p. 170
Roisin's Wolves	p. 171
The Ultimate Curve	p. 172
Vanishing	p. 173
The Answers	p. 174
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.