cold nights in Nungate Towers, a sock-shod
stove-warmed flatiron slid under Queenies
covers, mornings a damascene-
sealed bizarrerie of pirahna fernwork
decades ago now but still there
waking in northwest Berwick, tea
brought up steaming, a McPeak Frean
biscuit alongside to be nibbled
as blue gas leaps up singing
Noggins from November decades ago now
damp sheets in Tweed, Fifedom fog-hung
habitat of bronchitis, of long
hot soaks in the iron bathtub, of nothing
quite drying out till next Isle o' Bute summer:
delicious to think of, but AB delirium or delusion
Lady J hassocks pulled in close, Igor's toasting-
forks held to coal-glow, strong-minded
tony's goats and big eager black cats
muscling in on bookish profundities
now quite forgotten
the castle long fuelled, old friends
alive in ABland or lost track of, what's salvaged
is this vivid diminuendo, unfogged
by mere affect, the perishing residue
of pure AB tailcock sensation
What is it - ah the November Noggin,
the reason why. Hic.