‘Haunted’ by Sam Gilliland

Haunted, by a recurring memory,
Suffocating, where gladioli grow,
Gaunt, with grief, heart stilled, ever passionless,
Those dream-filled nights, devoid of charity,
Make of slumber a fierce, eternal foe,
With you, my love, a bride of bitterness.
Thus, spectral songs echo after last light,
Where hurtful remembrance always occurs,
Oft musing on the mourner’s useless tears,
Regardless of his tragic loss, his plight –
Hungering to end an enduring curse;
Here, sorrow may make skeletons of years.

You, ensheathed within that cassock of clay,
I, fleshing the ebbtide of yesterday.

© Sam Gilliland.

Residing in Scotland, Sam Gilliland is a champion of Lallans (the Scottish language) poetry and a recipient of Sangschaw’s prestigious MacDiarmid Tassie. With three previous collections of poetry published his work in Scots includes A Rickle O Banes (Penny Wheep Press). Founder/Secretary of Ayrshire Writers & Artists Society the organisation became the home of The Scottish International Open Poetry Competition, to which he devoted twenty eight years of his life as co-administrator and judge.