The Ofi Press Magazine

Poem by Stephen Watt (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 48

Sauchiehullabaloo

You, street of bearded ladies

coursing through Primark’s racks

and accessorised clowns

denouncing zero hour contracts,

            spin upside down, acrobats,

            safely into my chalked hands.

Day turns night as is the natural order

when Scotland the Brave’s played

on a pilfered school recorder

and Leo the Silent Raver’s

woollen-butter hands

            dance on the glass

            of the black cabs

choreographed

            on Rose Street’s corner.

Outside plate-spinning restaurants,

waiters imitate lion-tamers

where grinning big cats

celebrate engagements and divorcements,

promotions and liberations

            from young offender lock-ups.

            Skaters provoke pigeons

            like feathered fireworks.

A perennial lorry hangs out a building

shielding a longstanding queue

of feather cuts

vaping smoke and mirrors,

and decorated, six-foot KNOW THY NUTS

testicular cancer posters

            evaporate like illusionists

in the space of three Jaegermeisters.

Roll up! Roll up!

Sauchiehall Street

never suffers from boredom

and through the hullabaloo, this Welcome To,

rest assured

that no animals were hurt

            during the making of this poem.