Robert Burns, beyond the sentimentality

I will admit for a long time, I have had a false picture of Burns in my mind. The sentimental poet deployed for jingoistic means on the 25th of January and with neverending odes to a haggis to make the nationalists proud.

Burns is much more than a scottish poet, he is a poet who can be named alongside the likes of Catull, Villon or Heine for his sharp wittedness, the easy flow of verse, his humour and the barbs. The Scotland of his age dominated by a cruel, humourless kirk cannot have been an easy place for an indepedent man to live. His countless poems ridiculing them about their hypocrisy surely made him many enemies.

And then the deil. The deil is a constant symbol in Burns's poems. Is the deil something evil or is the deil just the unseen side of so much clandestine hypocrisy, the dark, subliminal side of the kirk. I prefer not to intreprate poems but rather let them brew inside me. I find his deil sympathetic and humanistic.

Poet Burns! poet Burns, wi" your priest-skelpin turns,

Why desert ye your auld native shire?

Your muse is a gipsy, yet were she e'en tipsy,

She could ca'us nae waur than we are,

Poet Burns! She could ca'us naewaur than we are.

Burns and political correctness.

The parallels between the narrow mindedness of the kirk and the same narrow mindedness which can be found in today's political correctness is mind boggling.

Nicola Sturgeon said of A Man's A Man For A' That, it would be a better poem, if it was called A person's a person for a'that.

I guess, she has to pay lip service to Robert Burns to assuage her nationalistic cronies but it would do her no harm to read him as the world does not let itself be defined in black and white, and Burns might widen her bigotted, jingoistic horizons,

Rude poems

O D E T O A P E N I S By Robert Burns Puir wee saft an' flabby penis, A wheen o' pleasure you hae gien us. An hour or twa ago, puir thing, Ye made a lassie's gled hert sing, For then ye stuck oot firm and prood An' put Jean Armour in the mood. She doted on the love ye geid, An' lost wi' glee her maidenheid. Her comely thighs, her erse sae braw Did answer mother nature's ca'. She squirmit like a trimlin' jelly, As ye went scuddin' up her belly. Fu' prood she wis o' hard worked penis: an' hoo ye jerked sae weel between us; She lay there, gigglin' wi' pleasure; Lie doon, and rest - ye've earned yer leisure. For Ye geid yer a' tae satisfy The urgent need o' Jean and I. Still ye did a guid night's work; Ye did yer duty, didnae shirk. Noo, wee thing ye look sae sad, You're just nae use tae Rabbie lad. Ye're wabbit oot, an' saft as butter - But hoo ye made Jean Armour splutter. An' as I slowly puff my pipe Ye look just like some wrinkled tripe. Noo ma Bonnie Jean's gang hame Tae hing her heid in sorry shame. Ye ken gie weel ye did her wrang - I kept ye in her far too lang, An' noo we'll hae tae wait an' see If Jean will hae a pregnancy. Oh weel, we a' men, we tak oor chances, Let's saunter doon tae Poosie Nansy's, An' when I've had a dram or twa I'll let ye piss agin' the wa'. Maybe ye'll pardon my abuses I realise ye've ither uses. TAMS MUCKLE TURD. Intae the wids amongst the trees. Tam bared his erse, his cheeks to ease. Nae sinner hud his breeks gan doon. Than shitty flees were swarming roon. Intae the wind he bared his baws and from his erse a big keech faws. The reek it curled amongst the trees. 'twis enough tae make the birdies sneeze. An' a' the bees on bended knees, Got sick a fricht o' Tams big erse. Big Tam wis in awfy pain. It came oot his erse like a nine pund wean. Thur wis a tear faw fi' his eee For a bigger shit you'd never see. Big Tams erse wis raw an sair. Says big Tam I'll shite nae mair. Yonder it lay amongst the grit. A dirty stinkin' muckle shit. Yonder it lay si saft, si fresh. Nae een, nae teeth, nae bains, nae flesh. I swear it never drew a breath. Tams Muckle Turd. -- $ There is no nu-monet there is only Zuul. $ There is no greater salve to the body and the spirit than "getting over."

The serious Burns

The poem A Man's A Man For A' That shows Burns serious nature and not wanting to read too much into his works or person, a strong sense for equality. The command of language communicating a powerful messages cannot have pleased many, and as all of Burns poems are relevant today, the verse

Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;

Tho' hundreds worship at his word,

He's but a coof for a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that,

The man o' independent mind

He looks an' laughs at a' that.

seems especially pertintent today when we consider the coofs, we have running the show.