Plant, what are you then? Your leafs
Mind me o’ the pipes’ lood drone
—And a’ your purple tops
Are the pirly-wirly notes
That gang staggerin’ owre them as they groan.

Or your leafs are alligators
That ha’e gobbled owre a haill
Company o’ Heilant sodgers,
And left naethin’ but the toories
O’ their Balmoral bonnets to tell the tale.

Or a muckle bellows blawin’
Wi’ the sperks a’ whizzin’ oot;
Or green tides sweeshin’
’Neth heich-skeich stars,
Or centuries fleein’ doun a water-chute.

Grinnin’ gargoyle by a saint,
Mephistopheles in Heaven,
Skeleton at a tea-meetin’,
Missin’ link—or creakin’
Hinge atween the deid and livin’….

(I kent a Terrier in a sham fecht aince,
Wha louped a dyke and landed on a thistle.
He’d naething on ava aneth his kilt.
Schönberg has nae notation for his whistle.)…

 

from A Drunk Man Looks at Throbbing Thistle