|
Sheena Blackhall
Has written several volumes of poetry and short stories (in Scots and English). Also sings and illustrates.
Poems
PIERREPOINT'S PLACE
The hand that hooded the condemned,
That adjusted the noose as deftly as knotting a tie
Signed autographs on postcards of his pub
To punters, over a slice of ploughman's pie.
My father, off on business, bagged this trophy.
Pierrepoint, the hangman, was affable, he said,
Exuded bonhomie. His place was spotless.
You could see your face in his boots.
Death's butler, he carried the poisoned chalice,
Never spilled a drop. So skilled, he brought a lump
To the felon's throat. Who can gauge the roots
Of such a man, seeded in human quicksand?
His autograph's survived for fifty years,
Whereas postcards from Lossie or Butlin's
Signed with love and kisses from Uncle Ian and Nan
Were burned with the dripping
Two days after reading.
Return to top
|
EXISTENTIALIST
Where do I live?
In the space between Monday and Sunday
In the retina of the crow's eye.
I am a skin of prickles under a blue balloon
Always, the salt spills. The cupboard's shadows
Fall across the floor.
Return to top
|
THE CROCODILE GOD: SOBEK
The ultimate in doonricht dehydration,
Crocodile mummy in the sanny wame o the derk
Flash bulbs pit flame in yer een
I hauf expeck ye tae slidder inno the Nile
By sugar cane an corn
Like a lit touch-paper
Fishermen worshipped ye,
Killer o their kind.
Made friens wi the enemy.
Lued him, even.
Daith, wi the green back,
The glentin teeth.
Return to top
|
TOUCHIN DOON
Touchin doon, the langed-fur Nor East cweel
Wis absent. We’d flown frae the fryin pan
Inno the fire. The hettest simmer in a hunner years
While we’d bin in Luxor, citizens anon,
Israel hid made war on Lebanon
Onythin tae declare? the customs speired
Sabah al ishtar…mornin o cream tae ye
I thocht, bit kept ma tongue atween ma teeth
Return to top
|
TREE CIRCLE
Blaik in the gloamin five derk trees
Gaither the hoodies tae their eaves
Whisperin secrets widlans ken
Sklaikin o hoolet, bog an fen
Wauchtin their wid yoam ben the breeze
Nae fire-flaucht will disturb their ease
Sic warlock-wids hae histories
Aulder than Templar Park or Ben
Here micht fey Druids’ mysteries
Linger amang sterk boughs as these
On the heich horizon, still as Zen
Source tae the labyrinthine den
Vrocht at the warld’s genesis
Return to top
|
ANNA
Five years old, she wears her hair in bunches
Her smile is broad as America
The spring in her step is real
Every spider she meets is six feet huge
The wedge of gorgonzola cheese in her lunch box
Suddenly grows three palm trees
And this is why she chose to eat instead
A large pink ice cream, crowned with a wobbly cherry
Freddy, the new arrival at her table
Jumps through spaghetti hoops to be her friend
But he’s a dog, his nose drips down his jersey
Over his uniform, along the chair
Anna imagines his cheekbones sprouting hair
Classmates are bright balloons, bubbles of faces
A face is how she learns to read the world
Her ABC of wicked witch and prince
Return to top
|
LOOMWEIGHT
This is the wirm that bedd in the yird o Flanders
This is the yird that grew the girse
Far wummled the wirm
That bedd in the yird o Flanders
This is the girse that fed the yowe
That claithed the man that focht the Hun
Richt there on the yird o Flanders
This is the poppy, reid an rare
Its reets rin deep in this cursed lair
Feedin on deid men’s bluid an mair
That lies in the yird o Flanders
Return to top
|
SEINE
A river, green's
a jade king's blood
to dream beside of
Sunflowers, cyclist thighs,
balloons, church bells
a bottle cooling on ice
The soft loaf of the sun
drops crumbs of light
transforming ducks from
wheeling wings to boats
A plastic cup rolls in a perfect arc
a jumping child claps at the bob bob waves
two lovers lock their edges in a jigsaw
Return to top
|
KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE
Bairns lie stiff as new-sterched linen
Laid in quate drawers
Far classies kisted them.
Stoor skenkles their hair,
An frost, that faas
Ben cracks in pavements like their lives
The day, yird smashed its plates
Made kinnlin o clachans
Tint its merbles
Cowpit an unripe crop
Inno its derk winepress
Allah is merciful
Here and yonner,
A dall, a baa,
Survives
Return to top
|
|
