Tidal deposits. Berwick beach. Mixed media on card.

Introspection A fusty slice Of thin air, the room Overinsulated, skimmed, too small. It’s all too much, The splinters in the floor, Trails of blood, Gurning oil paintings, I guess we’re stuck, Awaiting the proprietor Who’s up to something less than good. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Rock sketches.

Insurrection The hotel lobby dulls The thud of distant guns. A bus rumbles up the coast road. Best to wait. Shutters stop The shattered glass. The clock Says lunch. No one moves, Slumped on settles, hunched In chairs. Far away Colthurst Grabs a firing squad. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

High tide deposits mountains of weed. Berwick beach. Mixed media.

Busted flush O yes the billowing Shaking out dust Earth’s great eiderdowns We like that You can lie supine After all you are clamped To the earth Dimensionally limited And there (O yes) They puff out There lacey breasts Proud and ornate Learn their names To honour them M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Kirk Yetholm, gorse in bloom. Mixed media on card.

Cuddy By the pier a sludgy sea Arranges a niche beach, Scatters rows of dotted stones, Kelp lines. Here I nail A cuddy segment, like a fruit Pip, old as time, a tiny wheel Before wheels. Pure imperfect. Slipped into pocket, stone Grub, and about time. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. Rain’s soft greeting. A motorbike in deep discussion with silence. A tiny leaf in a tiny puddle. Yesterday’s pattern of pebbles is still on the pavement. That pack of slates: a roof-in-waiting.

Rocks emerging from the night. Pen and washes on paper.

Weather The sky is awesome cerulean, Full of gold twinkles, dead As space, each swarm must Leave no trace. The spoils Of heat exchange clump like Dense blossom. Such tonnage, Summer’s fierce dance, grace Falling in the wrong place. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

When will they stop photographing and painting Berwick lighthouse? Oil sketches on paper.

Unread screed There you go, mate. It’s words That make it go round, mere Colloquialisms. I can chiff And chaff all day. The birds And their song. You only hear The Babel babble, cawing Crows, people squawking In Sports Direct. I’m ignoring Crawling til I’m almost walking. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Afternoon swim. I said to the fisherman ‘I’ll bring back a lovely bit of cod or ling for your supper’, but I came back empty handed and he lit a spliff and looked at me benignly, as you would at a simpleton.

Early stroll. A long thin cloud like a monobrow. A pigeon escapes a tree’s clutches. Five pebbles in the shape of a five on a dice. A dropped piece of paper could be a giant’s tooth from a distance. An ancient bearded man stands on a street corner.

Early stroll. The narrative of empty pegs on a washing line. I am reflected in a parked car’s door. The sun illuminates a Public Footpath sign. A deflated pink balloon.

Stormy times. Mixed media and collage on card.

Ulysses You ask when I’m coming home, A fervour in your throat. Home is a trap, a place unseen For moons on end. The heart Has left the hearth, gone to sea. You may not wait for me. I have a bus pass, a mad dog. In time I come, Golden Square, Slaying those nearby who dare. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Berwick lighthouse, kelp, dusk. Mixed media on paper.

Volcano Too Indistinct Swirl of magma Lost pumice forests Lava soufflés Often seals bask Or a heron stabs Dull slabs of sea Disdainful stoop You have to climb The cheesy cliffs To oystercatcher squeals To see The upside down Earth and land Of other times Dormant spirals M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Morning swim. My advice - and I must be very clear on this point - is don’t swim today.

Dying embers. Collage and oil on paper.

Useful idiot O I carried the cask Back from his grim town: All flags flying in white might. Scowls a badge of honour. They can’t embrace me, Ill-fitting, square-pegged, Cynically cured. Walk away, You say, live again. Stuff Their bones in the chasm Of Dock Tower. So I did. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Morning stroll. Coastal path scrambling time.

Schtum! Don’t tell anyone about this exhibition. Bridge Street, Berwick upon Tweed. Keep it to yourself.

Fever dream. Collage on card.

Where’s dad these days? Little beach smells of death. Gussets of lettuce-weed Interfere with knees. Intertidal Zone, pristine, washed clean, No trace of his remains. An odd scene, a black Gale, shoe box, himself Summoning nature, dragging Me under, sand filling my pockets. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Beach painting shenanigans.

Excavating layers. Collage and mixed media on paper.

Piecemeal On a scuffed floor A tatty canine semblance Eats a ball. I’ve seen it all. Tourists flood by After the sun trap In the kelp beds. Something Wrong in their russet heads I guess. Where’s the sense Of distance, perspective, The golden mean? A crescent moon at noon. M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Berwick lighthouse from the road. Collage and acrylic on card.

The effect of war Who won the war? The spoils unshared. In the playground, a spitfire. He never took his shots. If dead you should lie still. Primary children Pretending to fly drones, Dig trenches. Sedentary. From the distance All is understated, Children under rubble. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Get yer rocks off. Berwick beach. Collage and oil on paper.

Basic wall grout Let’s get menhirs of heft, Dressed blocks, cobbles Of earth’s suppuration Tumultuously suspended on strands. Join up the ditches, stumble, Sub-contractors on the bodge. Skimped rubble and lime, Save time, hold back the sea, Make stone epic. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Morning swim. Join our club.

Morning stroll. Darkness defined by light.

Travels with my Sketchpad.

Nuggets Keep the coast on your right to make friends Even the seal pup knows the tide returns At the bottom of the sea another beach In 1624 a stone thread sewed lands Together like patches on a down We are older than we think, a cuddy Warm in the ruts of our palms M @imcmillan.bsky.social

Travels with my Sketchpad.

Going on I watched life drift by In the form of an ebbtide Curling up the rivermouth With the cadence of a chore. There goes the stroking lap Of the tidal bore, a long wave Washing silt up the shore. Those boaters, caught out And scudding like shot ducks. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Something of a lighthouse view. Collage and oil on paper.

Four Paulines The original green one Of maternal damage Post-war boom boom Boomer. Then the shop Matriarch, such commitment, Seething. I knew a red haired She-devil once, a dash of music And burgundy. And lastly A two-toned tale, a crack Of spine, the colour black. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

The correct date on this one!

Now on!

Seaweed - not a weed at all. Collage and mixed media on paper.

Seaweed So dismissive - the rotten Tonnage, bubble-wrap bladderwrack And leather-belt fronds Of tongues of kelp. Just weeds. Will it help If I throw it back From the skerrie or the stack? Then a mere weed might Wave its fecundity, Escape the tag of blight. Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social

Early stroll. A white feather beside a black gate. A new bench in an old garden. A lit-up empty house like a stage set. The moon’s art in the sky’s gallery. That car’s engine is noise plus VAT.

Kelpy view of Berwick. Mixed media on paper.

Fiscal composite Made to last A short while It’s a pecuniary matter I never lived So brazenly Or hopelessly at a Rate of knots Bullet fast Burning matches with abandon I’ll slow down At my funeral Or the laying of a hand on Morn @imcmillan.bsky.social