Sue McMillan

Born in England and raised in Scotland, I was initially an art student, and then became a nurse by default. There followed a greatly diversified career, including Bed and Breakfast, a restaurant and then two antique shops, followed by work with alcoholics and addicts, before I moved to Aberdeen in November 2003. I have two grown-up daughters and my interests are writing, travelling and walking.

Poems

PATCHOULI

Woody musky fragrance
Magic amber liquid
Small time capsule
One whiff – sensation
again.
Kaftan garbed
Psychedelic hues
Absorbing smells
of incense.
All night revelry
Experiencing Hendrix
Shopping at Bibas
Teetering platforms
Love beads
Peace badges
Protest marches.
All enclosed in
a tiny insignificant
brown bottle.
Essence of me.

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LOW TIDE

Empty beach,
early morning – a comber's
heaven.
Humid air, no breeze,
sand
sensuously kissed by
ripples from the tide.

Stagnating
seaweed attracts flies,
abandoned lobster pots
lie discarded,
upturned like shopping
baskets.

I want
to lie down – make sand
angels,
feel sand lice jump,
study textured grains,
absorb
the warmth of sun.

Instead
I dig for lug worms,
looking carefully
to find
the largest cast, so that
I can have the best bait.

Beads of sweat trickle
into rivulets
clothes stick, flies
gorge,
my muscles ache with
steady shovelling.

Wet sand,
strewn with potholes,
bucket now covered
with my clothes, while
languidly
I float
submitting to my
decadence.

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LET TIGERS PROWL

Talk to me, tell of the places
you have been,
paint vivid pictures in my head –
satiate my senses,
let my nostrils quiver with scents
of hibiscus and spice,
my mouth salivate on oranges and
mangoes.

These coloured photographs mean
nothing –
they are empty images of foreign
parts.
I need the timbre of your voice –
the laughter mixed with scowls,
your antics and gesticulations.

So, talk to me, take me away from
this grey land,
allow your voice to resonate round
this room,
make me sweat under a searing sun
or feel the breath of camels on
my face –
let tigers prowl in every corner.

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JIMMY

My legs grow heavy,
how much further
will they go?
Tonight
they burden me,
stars
show my way,
moon
radiates her presence
but I am tired,
tired
to my very soul.
I could lie awhile
by this blackthorn,
sleep
would come
refresh these sad
old bones
worn done by a life
of travelling.
Ah! The tales I
could tell,
so many roads
so many faces.
Weariness
cloaks my body in
a velvet blanket,
I am too weak
to resist,
even the stars
begin to blur.
I lay on my hap
to ease my pain
and listen to the
creatures
of the night.
My aches seem gone,
everything
now dim and distant.
I feel warm,
young again, stepping
out,
on a road
untravelled...

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