Alan Gillis
August in Edinburgh
August in Edinburgh
Not a cloud in the sky and it’s raining.
It’s the brusqueness of things,
and the drag of things, that hurts.
The most beautiful woman in the world
is in Edinburgh, at the festival.
She looks me in the eye and says please
move I’m trying to look at the artworks.
My doctor says the heart works
but don’t push it. I hear music,
long familiar songs, everywhere I go.
Pain is in the mind, someone tells Leonardo
DiCaprio in Shutter Island. Everyone
is rushing but the crowd moves slow.
Leonardo can’t get his head around it.
A man in costume shouts we’ve sold out here
holding his hat out for money and rain.
The mind is an island and everyone
is beautiful, looking for something new
again. But the heart feels cold.
My son sticks my phone charger in his ear
and says I’ve got an electric brain.
I’ve been streaming old LPs I never thought
I’d hear again, never thinking the old songs
would not work, trying not to work the brain,
trying not to rise to the bait when that long
familiar voice rises from the damp and dismal
crowd, once again, to say hey, if we all think
hard enough, maybe we can stop this rain.
