The Sunday Post

Hullo ma wee blog,

Street Preacher. {1962}

Every Sunday evening at seven o'clock
He howls outside my window. He howls about God.
No tattered prophet: a rosy bourgeois, he lifts
His head and howls. He addresses me as friend.

One day I'll open the window and howl at him
And so betray his enemy. I'll call him brother.
Who'd laugh the louder, the Devil or God, to see
Two rosy bourgeois howling at each other.

When he goes coughing home, does he speak to his wife
Of the good fight well fought, the shaft well sped,
Before he puts God's teeth in a glass and, taking
His sensible underclothes off, rolls into bed.

Norman MacCaig.