English Poems From Robin Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Rooms
The sourest room was coastal.
Stank of the sea
The landlord was a lascivious OAP

The happiest room was bare
Of all but the merest furnishings
Its windows, all that stood
Between me and the bens
And the pine-fresh fragrant air

The coldest was a wintry urban bedroom
If you interrogated the door
It would tell of a doctor's regular coming and going
Of a child's hacking croup
In the season of ice and snowing

The last was a room in a field
The empire of the red admiral butterfly
Where the woods were the walls
And the fair skinned oats stood shining
Under the vault roofed sky


I am a Poem
I am a modern poem
I am not punctuated
I'm open ended
Some sides are serrated
A mouse crawls out and in
Between the lines
The perforations he chews
Afford the reader
A kaleidoscope of views


The Keep Fit Pantoum
Houmas, avocado, lettuce, sourdough
Chicken fajitas, salads, crudités
Keeping fit is deadly serious
Lycra hugs a jogger's flexing haunches

Chicken fajitas, salads, crudités
Earl Grey hydrates weary sweating walkers
Lycra hugs a jogger's flexing haunches
Each step's counted, calories as well

Earl grey hydrates weary sweating walkers
Body's a machine to calibrate
Each step's counted, calories as well
Swimmers make waves in the azure pool

Body's a machine to calibrate
Houmas, avocado, lettuce, sourdough
Swimmers make waves in the azure pool
Keeping fit is deadly serious



Broomhall House
Step through a portal into the past
Rub shoulders with history
Study the wondrous things that last
Of Scotland's legacy

See the home of the family Bruce
Set in a vast estate
Ten minutes by road from the rolling Forth
Tryst place for the good and great

Dunfermline Abbey owned the land
Where the mansion's founds were laid
The Abbey holds the body of Bruce
His sword's in the House displayed

The library has a priceless hoard
Paintings are grand and rich
A grand piano polished like glass
Played by Benno Moiseiwitsch

A fireplace in the dining room
Is made from the marriage bed
Of James VI and Anne his queen
When they were newly wed

Board meetings, statesmen, launches
This House has hosted all
Nobility through the centuries
Fit venue for protocol
Here's the architectural kudos
To reel film makers in
Seat of the Earls of Elgin
With Parthenon casts within

A sweeping road by pastures
Which many may inspect
Joggers, walkers, wildlife
With grazing sheep unchecked

Step through a portal into the past
Rub shoulders with history
Study the wondrous things that last
Of Scotland's legacy


Tiger Shark: The Garbage Can of the Sea
Eighteen feet long, it weighs a ton
With its stripes and can opener teeth
Its range of foods is incredibly wide
All that's above and beneath

A barbie doll, fur coat, licence plates
An entire suit of armour
Are some of the things gone down its hatch
Isn't this shark a charmer?

A chicken coop with chickens inside
Unopened tins of fish
Rubber boots and porcupines
Make for a tasty dish

A bag of money. A camera
Car tyres, pet dogs, a goat
Bats, rats, birds and turtles
Have all gone down its throat

Metal, plastic, fishing gear
Octopi, seals and snakes
When the tiger shark sails through the sea
It's full of junk and steaks


The Munch Bunch
Pea protein, or deep fried Mars Bars
Spirulina…fish and chips?
Chlorelia….doughnuts, butter
Flax seed….rowies, chocolate dips

Oat chai latte….English breakfast
Kail and ginger…syrup sponge
Mango, lychee….chocolate cake
Peppadew peppers….lean rump steak


Child of the split
I want my life back
I was shoved through the door to a new
Unwanted life
Ripped away from my former friends
As if someone had smashed the compass of my world

I know every letter in
The depressive's alphabet
Please let me raise the wreck of my yesterday
Let me at least keep memory intact
The ghost of the family
Before it was dropped and shattered

Colour association shows it all
Red-bleeding, yellow-supporating
Gangrene -green blue-bruised
A palette for the trauma of the split


The Floral Dance
Bluebell, celandine and clover
Dog rose, meadowsweet and cornflower

Foxglove, knapweed, mint, cow parsley
Nightshade, primrose, ox eye daisy

Violet, buttercup, snowdrop white
Ragged robin. Bees' delight
To sip the nectar from the flowers
Buzzing through warm, drowsy hours

Daffodil and orchid gay
Spread their scent seductively

Harebell, heather, vetch and thyme
Make moorlands and woods sublime


Finding Alfred Hitchcock through his films
Always Tell Your Wife
What you've done in The Pleasure Garden
The Mountain Eagle saw it all

And what happened to the Lodger in the London Fog?
Did he lose the Ring? It all went Downhill
After he left The Farmer's Wife with her Easy Virtue

Champagne and Blackmail go well together
An Elastic Affair ended in Murder!

In The Skin Game Mary advertised the special cream
Rich and Strange, called Number Seventeen

And who could forget Waltzes from Vienna?
The Man Who Knew Too Much walked down
The 39 Steps when he became a Secret Agent

Sabotage takes place amongst the Young and Innocent
When The Lady Vanishes at Jamaica Inn

Rebecca was a Foreign Correspondent
When Mr. & Mrs. Smith fell under Suspicion
The Saboteur without the Shadow of a Doubt
Escaped on a Lifeboat

Spellbound by the Notorious Paradine Case
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Uncovered the Family Plot
Dialled M for Murder
Marnie ripped the Torn Curtain
In a Frenzy to find the Topaz
And To Catch a Thief

The Trouble with Harry
Was that he was The Wrong Man
He took Stage Fright and suffered from Vertigo

From the Rear Window
North by Northwest
Strangers on a Train
Spotted The Birds

I Confess
Admitted the Psycho
As the Rope slipped round his neck


Honshu
Honshu a Japanese macaque
Escaped from a Highland wildlife park
Keepers chased him with darts and nets
Drones followed him after dark

Spotted in Speyside wily, free
He gained worldwide celebrity
Ravaging birds' supplies of food
Star of facebook news, TV

Lured at last by a Yorkshire pud
Honshu, caught and secured for good

Cento one
What was he doing the great god Pan?
Talking of Michaelangelo
Watching the woods fill up with snow
Where swallows travel to and fro

Where, o where did he go? Far, far, how far?
To the old lost road through the woods?
He took the road less travelled by
A lone road, a bit of rain, and a drenched guitar

Cento Two
Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow?
How warm the wind must blow! The Moon was but a chin of gold
When fast by Philip's farm I flow
For men may come and men may go
So I'll cry Tally ho!


Cento Three
Slowly and sadly we laid him down
All in the valley of death
And saw the stars millions of miles away
And saw the future and the universe
All in the valley of death


Cento Four
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never, in just spring
When the world is mud luscious
Can lie down and sleep?
Does the road wind uphill all the way?

Wishbone
My brown eyed beautiful son
I should have flooded your sight
With orchards and meadows,
Your ears with the rhapsodies of singing larks
Your Aprils with snowdrops and crocuses

Baby without blemish or wrinkle,
Even a sparrow builds a safe nest for its young
But I gave you a sky without stars
A road full of weeds and pitfalls

I should have known
When I snapped the wishbone with fate
I got the stump, the future did not bode well
You inherited a dish of sour fruits
And misery in spades.

My brown eyed beautiful son
I should have flooded your sight
With orchards and meadows,
Your ears with the rhapsodies of singing larks
Your Aprils with snowdrops and crocuses