Zero Hours

RAB WILSON was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire, in 1960 and worked in the Ayrshire pits until the end of the Miners’ Strike of 1984. He then left the mining industry to train as a psychiatric nurse in 1986. A Scots poet, Rab writes predomi-nantly in Lallans, and his poetry has appeared in some of Scotland’s leading poetry magazines, and regularly in The Herald newspaper’s daily poetry column. He has performed his work to varied audiences throughout Scotland and has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, the Robert Burns International Festival, the Burns an a’ That Festival and was a featured poet at the Wigtown Book Festival.

Many of Wilson's poems here, in both Scots and in English, are essentially stories in miniature, which is perhaps why he so often seems inspired by storytellers like Walter Scott, as well as artists like Joan Eardley. He has a highly effective skewering style, cutting through pretence and pomposity with ease. SUNDAY HERALD

• General Poems IZero Hours 11In Memory of Tom Carrick 13Richter Scale 14First Bike 15With Andy and Amanda in the Charity Shop 16Salmon Nets and the Sea 18Glasgow Close 19The Spey Wife 21There it is… 22James Hogg PoemsAuld Lass 25Boy Racers 26The Teapot 27Thir ir the Steps o Glendearg 29Cornua Reparabit Phoebe! 32The Mairriage Stane 35Souch… 36General Poems IICultyir at Killie Odeon 39Double Act 40The Paralytic Games 41Delighted by a Dallop Outside Dereham 42A Spider’s Web Glazed with Frost 44Chairm 45Elegy 46Salmon at Euchan Falls 47BurnsianaBurns Country 51Portrait of Colin McLuckie 53Negative Sublime ii (or Portrait of Lord Byron) 55Blind Ossian 56Sir Walter Scott 57Blue Burns 58Twa Plack 59General Poems IIIApparatus for Determining the Absolute Om 63Can `Can’? 64On the Marriage of Dear Carr to his Beloved Girl 65Maggie, Maggie, MaggieI The Lanely Daith o Maggie Thatcher 66II Maggie’s Funeral 67III Everything Must Go… 69Bank Robbers 70Royal and Ancient 71War Memorial, Afton Valley 72Roads 73lermontovFareweel Unwasht Russia 77Ma Kintra 78The Dagger 79General Poems IVSix Swans a Swimming 83What The Alien Speaks of When he Speaksof Love 84Dirty Des 86Gerry Sells the Jerseys 87Gallus! 88Fourteen Coos 89Lown 90If I could Just Go Back there Once Again… 91Im NHSMartin’s Moral Compass 95Cuid Hae Duin Better 96A Rhyming Epistle tae Dave Prentis 97nhs Ayrshire’s Garland 102Leviathan 105Armistice Day 108OwersettinsEpilogue 111Ah wis Deid, Syne Leevin 112The Tuim Boat 114The Gowden Boat 116General Poems VDesert Island Discs 121At the Church of the Latter Day Empiricists 122God’s Telephone Number 123Glenafton 2 Camelon 0 124Heich Simmer 125Eftir the Kistin 126The Auld Toon Schuil 127Here We Go… 129Polquhirter 130Wheel 131The Christmas Bulbs 134Equipoise 135Shards 136General Poems VIParadise Enow! 139`Seldom Seen’ 140Saint Valentine 141Jockeys Destroyed! 142Lang Ling Legammachie 143Skeely Fowk 144The Question 145RantRant 151The End o the World 152State of the Nation 155Hou the First Tory wis Made 158Promises, Promises… 159Dave’s Hair: The Journey Continues…! 165Ode to Lord Winston! 169General Poems VIIThe Waithercock 175Treasuir 176The Stanes Dwam in the Dykes 177Multiverse 178Burnt Sienna and Periwinkle 179Raxin fir the Dawin 180Veesion 181Design 182The Horseman’s Word 183The Greater Sea 185Notes to Zero Hours