*“Rootit on gressless peaks, whaur its erect
     And jaggy leafs, austerely cauld and dumb,
     Haud the slow scaly serpent in respect,
     The Gothic thistle, whaur the insect’s hum
     Soon’s fer aff, lifts abune the rock it scorns
     Its rigid virtue for the Heavens to see.
     The too’ering boulders gaird it. And the bee
     Mak’s honey frae the roses on its thorns.”

But that’s a Belgian refugee, of coorse.
This Freudian complex has somehoo slunken
Frae Scotland’s soul—the Scots aboulia—
Whilst a’ its terra nullius is betrunken.

And a’ the country roon’ aboot it noo
Lies clapt and shrunken syne like somebody wha
Has lang o’ seven devils been possessed;
Then when he turns a corner tines them a’,

Or like a body that has tint its soul.
Perched like a monkey on its heedless kist,
Or like a sea that peacefu’ fa’s again
When frae its deeps an octopus is fished.

I canna feel it has to dae wi’ me
Mair than a composite diagram o’
Cross-sections o’ my forbears’ organs
—And mine—’ud bring a kind o’ freen’ly glow.

And yet like bindweed through my clay it’s run,
And a’ my folks’—it’s queer to see’t unroll.
My ain soul looks me in the face, as ’twere,
And mair than my ain soul—my nation’s soul!

And sall a Belgian pit it into words
And sing a sang to’t syne, and no’ a Scot?
Oors is a wilder thistle, and Ramaekers
Canna bear aff the gree—avaunt the thocht!

To meddle wi’ the thistle and to pluck
The figs frae’t is my metier, I think.
Awak’, my muse, and gin you’re in puir fettle,
We aye can blame it on th’ inferior drink.

T. S. Eliot—it’s a Scottish name—
Afore he wrote ‘The Waste Land’ s’ud ha’e come
To Scotland here. He wad ha’e written
A better poem syne—like this, by gum!

Type o’ the wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit,
Begriffsmüdigkeit that has gar’t
Men try Morphologies der Weltgeschichte,
And mad Expressionismus syne in Art.

*From the Belgian poet, George Ramaekers

from A Drunk Man Looks at Throbbing Thistle