Billy Watt: The Wild Wind From The West

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THE WILD WIND FROM THE WEST
The wild wind from the west licks up satellite dishes as if they were Smarties - then spits them out again; twangs plastic guttering like a ruler on a desk; turns shirts on the washing-line into trapeze artists. It fans our slates on the lawn like a casino dealer and every time we stake the trees it bends them back. Snow will not ride on it. Hills lie low from it. Fishing smacks are juggled in the backwash of its palms. It cannot be contained by crammed isobars. Thrives in dark winter months. Lies low in summer. Where we toss in fiery beds it flings pebbles of rain, whistles through gaps in the glass for wild ghosts of sheepdogs. In the thrumming morning it flexes its molecules, chasing down the horizon, flushing out audacious planes.
BILLY WATT

THE WILD WIND FROM THE WEST

The wild wind from the west
licks up satellite dishes
as if they were Smarties -
then spits them out again;

twangs plastic guttering
like a ruler on a desk;
turns shirts on the washing-line
into trapeze artists.

It fans our slates on the lawn
like a casino dealer
and every time we stake
the trees it bends them back.

Snow will not ride on it.
Hills lie low from it.
Fishing smacks are juggled
in the backwash of its palms.

It cannot be contained
by crammed isobars.
Thrives in dark winter
months. Lies low in summer.

Where we toss in fiery beds
it flings pebbles of rain,
whistles through gaps in the glass
for wild ghosts of sheepdogs.

In the thrumming morning
it flexes its molecules,
chasing down the horizon,
flushing out audacious planes.

BILLY WATT

Billy Watt grew up by the mouth of the Clyde and now lives 600ft up a hillside in West Lothian, UK. His poetry pamphlet Porpoises on the Moray Firth was recently published by Redbeck Press and a short story selection, "Ways of Seeing, Ways of Falling" has just been published by Pipers' Ash.

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