Spikes of frost quiver in nostrils,
loenly windows weep coloured gems.
Christmas lights and violent shadows
prepare to celbrate the New Year.

Antennae perched on gray slate roofs
sway mournfully, muscially in the wind.
Empty bottles roll along dismal streeets,
and ulcered gums lose blackened teeth.

We arrive at the Victoria Bridge
avoiding dreary derelicts, sprawling, crawling.
Human stepeping stones, pawns leding to
riches where accents are the rulers.

Such eloquent screams boom as cannons
from those righeous few who rule the land.
Yet cannot compete with the wailings of
ships' forg horns, worker's cries for equality.

Laughter squeaks to clinkings of glasses
overflowing with quiet measured merriment.
Frost melts for a second and skeletons
pay homage to Time, to Auld Lang Syne.

We gulp in gallons for those lost years
when freedom could have belonged to us.
Thick mucous sticks in our throats and in our
lungs choking us as we gasp for breath.

Glasgow, Scotland (copyright 2000 by Sandra Staas)