Edinburgh Festival 97: Continuing his series of occasional poems, John Hegley takes the Edinburgh pulse

Voodoo Tattoo After handing out her parcel

Of publicity material

She wanders up to the castle to see the Stone of Destiny

It is fate

During the wait

She remembers the mockery I'd heard

About the English theft of the rock

From the Abbey in Scone

(As in macaroon):

The monks had time to foreplan it

And the pilferers left

With a chunk of something other

Than the original granite

Passing into the jewel chamber

The sandstone sits before her

She stands at the glass

With a class of schoolkids just gone back

Next to her, the slight cackle

Of a tourist headphone guide

Saying that the stone, Definitely genuine,

Was reinstated in 1996

Inside her own headphones, Jimi Hendrix

Strings out a black and bluesy guitar burst

King Jimi the First