O , Woe Donald Trump

Alastair McIntosh Alastair McIntosh at Ceann Hulabhig, Isle of Lewis

Donald Trump is an American billionaire born of an exiled ‘He’s had a lifetime to come here so why is he doing it now?’ Hebridean mother. He plans to build ‘the world’s greatest golf ‘It’s a PR stunt …’3 course’ and five hundred executive houses on a pristine beach … because, as a former councillor elaborated near Aberdeen, previously viewed as a protected land (see www. the place was being ‘… cynically manipulated’4 trumpgolfscotland.com). This bàrdachd arose from his attempts to and even your own cousin said evict an elderly woman who stands in his way. It is not an art with classic Island understatement poem. It is a bardic declamation coming out of a tradition that (not passed on in your genetic strand): speaks social truth direct to power – hot, rough, and on the hoof.1 ‘We’re happy to see him Alastair McIntosh although the visit is very brief.’ O Donald Trump It was my own old mother’s taxi driver O Donald Trump on the Isle of Lewis it is not the press before you now who said he lives next nor Island dignitaries nor even me … to your old mother’s house I am but the scribe on the Isle of Lewis moved by the land itself That made me think that as you said ‘is special’ how close we are to raise my pen on its behalf being separated by The Island too has got a voice just two mothers (though not a PR machine) and one Stornoway taxi The Island too has got a view And got me thinking upon the ways of such a son as you of your visit to the Island The Island knows about your wealth back in June 08 and what you did to get it to your family croft home and hears you speak of Barron Trump Inside of which you stepped your own ten-month wee son (according to reports) paraded down the Walk of Fame for fully ninety-eight seconds at Hollywood – you said: And told the press ‘He’s strong, he’s smart, he’s tough, he’s vicious, he’s violent: (with reference to all of the ingredients you need to be an entrepreneur!’5 your true relations We would have thought it in jest which is to say were it not for the blood trail the Trump International Golf Links) of real estate … (who pays rent yes, told the press: and who collects?) ‘I think this land is special. and the casinos … I think Scotland is special, (whose lives are spun on that roulette and I wanted to do something special both during hours, and after?) for my mother’2 The To which the neighbours said: The Trump Star Tower ‘We never saw the likes of this in our lives’ The Trump Elite Tower

Issue 1 EarthLines 43 The Trump Palace eighty-six year-old Molly Forbes The Trump Taj Mahal and her son, and the budgie perched on her shoulder, and Trump Marina who says about her place: far from the chip shops of Stornoway Harbour ‘I don’t want to sell it. And your name golden everywhere It is my paradise. high-rise windows glittering I want to live in it. ‘with Viracon’s 24-karat gold-coated glass’6 Why should some of those top knobs not from you ‘cold-shoulder gold’ in Government with their crooked ways but a Liquid Gold Bodywrap of claiming money with a 24-karat Gold Facial get legal aid at the Spa but I can’t? which according to publicity I think I can’t get any (that surely speaks the Truth as much as you) because I’m too honest.’ soothes away the wrinkles To which your sugared growlers say: by immersing crinkled body parts, I quote ‘It is regrettable that an elderly woman ‘in pure gold minerals and Egyptian chamomile’ Has been used to front and ‘muscle soothing massage with oils this frivolous court action. infused with golden particles,’ and: There are consequences ‘to top off the opulent treatment for filing a baseless claim guests are dusted in shimmering, and her son and lawyers iridescent gold powder’ should pay the expenses.’9 … thereby offering Oh really, Donald? ‘… discerning spa guests Consequences! the ultimate combination to seek protection from the law of optimal skin care of human rights and guiltless decadence.’7 so not to be cleared out from her own wee but and ben O Donald Trump for your greed, not need of Midas hubris, Golden Calf and Babel Towers with legal costs of up to 50k who with your trumped-up politicians more than she is maybe worth (a disappointment to our Scottish soil) but not as much as principle stand bunkered, as the prophets say (in case you fail to understand) ‘convicted by their convictions’ or the deficit thereof O, Donald Trump! It is not I that prosecute Woe, Donald Trump but the Island – of your mother and my youth … Woe … woe … woe … whose skeins of calcium and phosphorous There are ‘consequences’ indeed were knitted through our fledgling frames for what you do from out of herring bones and sheep and milk and oats The Island from within You stand accused, Donald Trump sees the likes of you … Stand up before the Court! The Island names, unmasks, engages with the Island’s court the likes of you … of forcing golden facials who take its name in vain against the grain on nature’s long protected countenance The Island has a context at Menie Links by Aberdeen into which to place the likes of you to make for tourist golf a course I quote, again with calls for airport fairways stretched from the Island’s own … publicity: to fly the face of global climate change ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! To trumpet up a way of life For ye devour widows’ houses… this world no longer can sustain For ye are like unto whitened sepulchres, (for the Earth can no longer afford the rich) which indeed appear beautiful outward, To force your way bulldozered in but are within full of dead men’s bones, by forcing others out and of all uncleanness.’10 although you hid the might of clout Woe to you, Donald Trump: and spun the spin which said: ‘Woe unto them that add house to house, ‘The Trump Organisation that join field to field, until there is no more room, has no Compulsory Purchase Order powers.’8 and that ye dwell yourselves alone You stand accused, Donald Trump in the midst of the land!’11 of seeking to evict Woe to you, Donald Trump, for:

44 EarthLines May 2012 Balmedie beach: looking north towards Menie and the site of Trump's proposed development | David Langan

‘The Lord preserveth the strangers; … from beauty’s desecration of true nature free and wild he relieveth the fatherless and widow: … from climate change vainglorious in ‘guiltless decadence’ but the way of the wicked Come home, Donald … he turneth upside down.’12 Come home in your mind! Woe, woe and three times, woe! Come home to gentle honest folks! Come home to nature’s guileless way! O, Donald Trump … without greed be not mistaken without force The Island does not cast a curse without tears does not return the shameful act with evil eye Renounce the rootless sands of capital and pride! Sufficient that it just … Renounce the decorated corpse of suppurating wealth! withdraws its blessing Renounce those ‘vicious … violent’ so-called winning ways! T’is you who stand yourself accursed … Come home, o Donald Trump, come home to this new start and drains the flow of life … … and build a golden Tower to be your greatest work of the artery cut that curls and tightens living art dreadful back upon itself … that rises from the fairway as the meteoric human The Island stands not for a curse heart but only to forgive Transmuted … Transfigured … Transubstantiated to draw back in its Prodigals Come home, Donald … ‘not seven times’ they say just come on home. ‘but seventy times seven times’13 You told the world you loved this land References and wished your mother’s memory (though naming your development 1. http://www.trippinguptrump.com/the-bunker we have perforce observed 2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/09/ not after Mary Ann MacLeod donaldtrump.scotland but after … Mr Trump) 3. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/ Don’t make for her a bunker … article4097572.ece … from the plunder of another woman’s world 4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2098500/

Issue 1 EarthLines 45 Donald-Trump-flies-to-Western-Isles-to-visit-mothers-home. 14. It appears that Mr Trump heard the outcry and has html backed down on the threatened use of compulsory purchase 5. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/01/16/donald- orders – see http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article. trump-on-his-10mon_n_38807.html aspx/2115921?UserKey 6. http://www.glassmagazine.com/article/commercial/ trump-tower-glitters-with-gold-coating Alastair McIntosh is a former director and current Fellow of 7. http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/liquid-gold-body- Scotland’s Centre for Human Ecology, and Visiting Professor wrap-trump-tower-spa - my italics. of Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. 8. http://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/Default.aspx?p=Dyn He is best known for his work on land reform, corporate amicModule&pageid=302670&ssid=188191&vnf=1 power, nonviolence and spirituality. His books include Soil 9. http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home- and Soul, Rekindling Community, Love and Revolution (collected news/widow-facing-huge-legal-bills-in-trump-protest-appeals- poetry), and Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope to-court-of-human-rights-1.1073890 and the Human Condition. His writing has been described 10. Matthew 23:14, 27 KJV as ‘inspirational’ by Starhawk, ‘world-changing’ by George 11. Isaiah 5:8 DBT Monbiot, ‘life-changing’ by the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, 12. Psalms 146:9 KJV and ‘truly mental’ by singer Thom Yorke of Radiohead (see also www.alastairmcintosh.com). 13. Matthew 18:22 WNT

Downed trees

First light. I take core samples as I slide into bed, your legs flashing white in the hall light’s ambivalent illumination, flashing white as you thunk bone-on-bone, flutterkicking away Rainforest, shame and e-delete from consciousness & my side of the bed. Unabridged water-tongue Your joints from heaped sheets: antlers speaks in its flow: nothing wider from mid-summer grasses this afternoon at the zoo, than the bank-breaker, dissolving the breeze skittering away the anabranch – resisting definition every time the reindeer sighed & snuffled of course bodies working despite themselves, lungs in the forest long-running factories & your fingers the man who knew the names, on the chain link, your attention rooted for the moment treated fear, heart & fever, logs off: to those flanks (& your flanks cool cut down and fallen into river-space as you roll to me & sleep-walk the long corridor – the medicine hiding in the bark, of my thigh through the sounding the seed’s forgotten cure, the text of the midnight train) … of recovery astray in a leaf After a summer in the grass, the reindeer will see their young shipped & what’s in the mouth like parcels. I know the tap of branches changes colour, converted on glass, your father’s nose whistles to eternal salt: the river sea, & your sighing swallows are dead letters dyeing in its own trumpet: compared to the downed trees of captivity. an amazed zone of remedy I know your shinbone-to-shinbone lost in the Atlantic twist knocks will heal overnight no matter how many sirens are added Charles Wilkinson to the night’s cool tongues but I can’t sleep.

Ariel Gordon

46 EarthLines May 2012