A Journal of Formal & Metrical Verse

Artwork by Grant Dolge Copyright 2010

Just Rain listen

for Maz

You died two months ago, a coastal-town
recluse. This bloody rain’s now making sense.
For you were married to the present tense
and what it brought. In daily life you’d frown
on wilful arrogance. You put it down
to carelessness – a cardinal offence,
you thought – and so you started to dispense
poetic justice. Margaret, here’s your crown.
You celebrated life, ignored taboo,
implored the world at large to do so too,
adored wild animals, abhorred the zoo,
championed natural habitats for all,
and didn’t give a toss the cuckoo’s call
contained no message.
Let the rain fall.

By Duncan Gillies MacLaurin


On the beach of a Greek island one night in 1981 Duncan Gillies MacLaurin was enchanted by a version of “Suzanne” on guitar. He started reading Classics at Oxford later that year, but Classical Philosophy’s dictum, “Poetry does not exist,” disagreed with him, and he took to playing trombone on the streets of Europe. In May 1986, on his last day in Assisi before heading off to Rome, he met a Danish writer on her way to Greece. They went to Yugoslavia together, where he purchased a guitar. It joined them the following year when they went to Greece for a two-month honeymoon. He has since lived in Denmark, is still married, still plays guitar, and still hasn’t been to Rome.