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Brian Johnstone

Side effect

All mine, the shaky plod that wavers in the dark; my heart, awry from medication, kicking back in protest at the drug it’s been prescribed, ingested hours ago in light, and now, as hours drag me back from sleep, the night is loud with beating ear-wormed in my head, the drum skin in my chest an out-of-synch jazz solo, pulse unsteady as a drunk at midnight reaching out for something solid to grab on to, force a calming in the gait that wanders, like some lost electric current, fizzing in the space between the poles.

The cry of tin

If a piece of tin be bent it emits a sound…termed the “cry of tin”. This phenomenon is explained by the peculiar crystalline structure of the metal.

J C Douglas, Philosophical Magazine, 1881

A man would find this cry maybe by accident, maybe intent. It lies in wait unheard, unknowable beyond the surface sheen, a counter to solidity that touch makes so apparent, the eye imagines as received. How could he know that this,

the grinding of the crystals one against another, was not the dialect of gods held within the magic of the tin, the spirit of the metal crying out in remonstration as its substance was deformed? Trapped in every ingot, truth as it was known to men.

Brian Johnstone, one of Scotland’s best known poets, is the author of seven collections and a memoir. His work has been published in over 20 countries worldwide and translated into over a dozen European languages. www.brianjohnstonepoet.co.uk