80 original works of lyrical verse drawn from the writers' experiences and encounters during extensive travels over much of his life.
Touching on subjects from love to shipwreck, war to nature, the poems in this book are individually excelent works but collectively a rare find these days. Some are sad, others are fun, some philosophic while others dramatic.
Jim Scott has honed his craft over 40 years of writing and even those written during younger timkes have been revisited to benefit from the developed skills.
As free verse has become the vogue some have said they can see the works of Jim Scott encouraging a revival in the former popularity of rhyme and meter poetry. Some of the poems in the book have already been put to music by professional musicians while others have been sought for inclusion in magazines.
The book is a must have for any lover lyrical verse for it adds a modern infusion to what is all too often (and incorrectly) seen as an old fashioned genre of writing.
Excerpt
Over the Ocean
Of the places I’ve been
and the countries I’ve seen
There are none that I’d choose over sailing.
When we’ve anchors aweigh
on a fresh winters day
And we’re catching the winds now prevailing,
I’d be up on the main yards
unlashing the sails,
Searching the seas,
searching the breeze,
With me weathered eye looking
for signs of the gales
That’ll carry me over the ocean.
Underneath a new moon
in a quiet lagoon
With the palms in the wind gently swaying.
It’s peaceful and still,
but it drains a man’s will
For the work for which owners are paying
When I’m furling the tops’ls
ahead of the squall,
Lashed by the rain,
lashed by the pain,
I’ll be laughing aloud
while I’m risking it all
‘Cos I’m running free over the ocean.
With the harbour town nights
winking out their delights
From the lassies who want to come find me.
It’s a rum run ashore,
and I’ve been there before,
Now I’m glad that those days are behind me.
It’s the plunge of the bowsprit
that ploughs through the waves,
Calls me to go,
calls me to know
It’s the challenge of nature
my wandering heart craves
That I find sailing over the ocean.
Near the small island town,
where my mother’s laid down,
There’s a cottage that’s mine for the taking.
And there’s work on the farm
where I’ll come to no harm
For the earnings that’s there for the making.
But the pitch of the mizzen
while working aloft,
Straining to fold,
straining to hold,
Is for me more rewarding
than working that croft
Where you can but look over the ocean.
So don’t ask me why
I don’t give it a try,
On the land where my family came from.
I’m a sailor you see,
Callum Stuart, that’s me,
And my kin’s just where I got that name from.
There all likeness was ended
and ties were undone.
Sailed from the shore,
sailed home no more.
I’m the black sheep, the rebel,
the prodigal son,
Who went sailing out over the ocean.
When my life is all through,
this I’m asking o’ you
That no matter the place that I’m laying,
You must bear me to sea,
where the wind’s blowing free
And the selkie and kittiwake’s playing.
In the roughest of waters
just heave me below,
Lashed in a sail,
lashed by the gale,
And then cast in your flowers
and leave them to flow
In the wind and tide over the ocean.
So my spirit may sail
where eternal gales blow
While me soul may glide over the ocean.
David Hightower’s lyrically expansive meditation on the whims of fate and the unpredictability of the human condition fill the pages of THE HANGING MAN DREAMS with thrilling music and mesmerizing imagery. Hightower’s richly infused voice echoes the e
