Red couldn’t wait, at seventeen in local uni,
to learn himself the leid of literarurszene,
and follow logische, thought that’s naturally wrought,
so one day he’d be equal to Marx-Engels-Werke.

Friedrich Holderlin a friend, the introverted Rilke,
though none would give like Mags’ comradely love;
who though a Germanist, was foremost in Left Brexit,
and drank to EU’s grief, with pinot noir and Kirschwasser.

both laughed out loud — no, the end of history hadn’t come,
“good friends! we’re not de trop, the dialectic yet drives on
cunningly, below the world’s mêlée, the rational
remains the real; turns all that’s solid into air — the oligarch
but transitory. Look past him! there you’ll see
our dialectic, still working in mysterious ways.”

Alastair McLeish was born in Bathgate in 1945. His long eco-feminist poem, Wee Greta As Telt By Gaia was a runner-up in the Sangschaw Prize of 2024.

Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com.