Mary McCabe, a PEN member, has published Everwinding Times (novel), Streets Schemes and Stages (book on cultural projects), Die zauberhafte Reise (children's storybook in translation) and has had radio plays broadcast in Germany and Switzerland, stories, poems and articles in Scots, English and Gaelic. Through the Scottish Book Trust scheme she runs occasional writers' workshops.
Tightrope Walker
Witchy, pitchy, inky black, icy sable
Death. Death. Death.
Eris, infinitesimal, eerie
Pluto, planetesimal, bleary
Gloomy goblin Neptune,
Looming ogre Uranus
Deadly, deadly, deadly
Death. Death. Death.
Saturn, iridescent venom
Jupiter, psychedelic poison
Deadly, deadly, deadly,
Death. Death. Death.
Dusty Mars, the doubting Thomas
Rusty rocks of broken promise
Dying, dying
Dead. Dead. Dead.
On the tightrope teeters Terra
Since the Pre-Cambrian era
Moony, moving, bonnie bluey
Sunny goldy, greeny dewy
Fertile fields and teeming seas
Cooling, warming, wafting breeze
Reviving rain and fragrant seasons…
One day without grounded reason
We may tip her back to ice
Bright white snowball, endless night
Or rock and roll the other way
Blazing, fiery, too much day
Morph into her sister planet…
Dazzling Venus in the morning
Suffocating, woeful warning
Smothering carbon, boiling storms
Scorched wee Mercury facing flames
Deadly, deadly
Death. Death. Death.
Sol, unequal in her giving
Kindly mother to our earth
Others find her unforgiving
Crematorium, place of birth
Icy shoulder, flaming breath.
Death. Death. Death.
(Life)
Death. Death. Death.
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