English Poems From Spoiler Alert! Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Souterrain, Tulloch
The wind flows gently from the river bank
Lapping the edge of buried history,
A shell of darkness, leading underground
In from the stony mouth of the souterrain

What manner of being delved beneath the earth
A human badger, carving out his sett?

A startled bawd leap-bounds across the field
Under the crystal brilliance of the sky.

What do the roots remember, in their roof
Where moonshine never crosses that low porch?
Did ancient tenants peer out to the stars?

The ancient Crags of Pannanich tell no tales
The osprey wheeling high o'er Tulloch kirk
Sails like a trail of smoke between the showers
The sob of a curlew weeps into the day
A heron streaks into a passing cloud
None offer insights into history
Set your ear to the earth. Do you hear whispers?
Percolate through the darkness, up to the light?

The shimmering pools of the Dee hold no man's footsteps
What rituals shared the pass of Pictish dead?
Where did their souls go? Did they ever leave?
Those painted warrior farmers with their hounds
Did they cross the river to afterlife?

Earth, if she could speak, might offer up the answers
Bees flew then as now. Might they recall
Those days when men carved symbols on the stones?

An honest buzzard hangs like a nailed cross
Watching the field with killer beak and claws
Silence can speak, but Pictish tongues do not.

What unholy secrets sleep in this underworld?
The black-haired tiny roots keep dumb and mum
The tribe who lived here blown away like mist

No snowflake troubles this deep hidden womb
Aeons of shifting grasses come and go
Storms and sunbursts pass by in a blink

Lord of all this, is steely Lochnagar
Fired red at sunset, black in clouds of rain
A mountain ancient long before the Picts
Farmed and foraged, Lost Folk of the Past

Forest of Birse Kirk
Inside a kirk, there's a hush,
And the change from outer to inner
From outside world to the silence of spirit or void

Someone has put fresh flowers on the bare altar
The harmonium's a blow through from New York

A Needham, with a mirror watching the pews
Like the mirrors on a car to check the traffic

Three heavy Bibles have weathered, but not well
Their pages slack as an ancient shepherd's teeth
The visitor books show the kirk is not forgotten

Outside the rain comes piddling down in squalls
Painting mandalas in the plashy pools

Blue bells, violets, primrose
Peep through the grass. Perfectly formed
No artist could improve them

A boisterous burn goes bounding on nearby
Alders wade in the water, paddling their roots
In the silver, amber, brass and golden waves

Lovely larches lean into the wind
A lapwing soars to scout around the rushes
Baby thistles suckle on the earth
In earshot of a willow warbler's psalm

Heaven's in the palm of your hand
Here by a pool comprising two night's rain
Three mallards sail by banks of yellow gorse

In the torn side of a massive rowan tree
A jackdaw's built its Rumpelstiltskin nest
One trailing strand of twig leads to its eggs

A black faced ewe stares curious, with its lamb
Following like a shadow, through bracken and moss


Spoiler Alert
Yellow snow's not caused by daffodils
Mars bars fried in fat don't decrease weight
Cars don't run on pints of irn bru
Cuddles from polar bears do not end well
You can't catch STDs from toilet seats
Never use barbed wire for your dog's lead
Swans can't walk when wearing platform soles
Pigs don't pirhouette: too fat a breed



A Cat Called the Flying Dishmop; for Sally Evans
A cat called the flying dishmop
With a coiffure in need of a crop
But her thick insulation, proved such inspiration
Who'd give such adornments the chop?


Insomniacs
Some fowk embrace insomnia
Became students o the clouds
Share the deid oors wi the man in the meen
Sing wi the whine o the brukken hairtit
Nae touchin, derk wi the blues


The Day the fur Coats Died
In the 6os, I swanked in Coney
Silky black & white pelts
Of the rabbit race, canoodling my thighs

I stepped out like a movie star
Swaddled in fur
Sometimes I slept in it
Swooned into its warmth,
Its sensational pelts

Animal activists raised the bar
Into what was beyond the pale
Stripped fur coats mystique off
Replacing glory with guilt

In the cat walks of the world
Fur coats sloped off like road kill
Dead to the dictates of fashion

I couldn't give my mother's furs away
Her musquash stole, mink hat,
Her slinky coat

Furs hang tenaciously on
In the icy wastes o Russian, China, Greenland
Where manmade fibres will not pollute the snows
Elsewhere, acetate, acrylic, rayon, polyester, nylon,
Which will last for centuries
Stuffing the rag bag of history
Now choke the streets of Delhi, Rangoon, and Nairobi



Moonlit Cat
The cat flows out like water,
Moonlight flashes danger in her eyes
A car near-misses
This is not a dream.

She angles left by a tree root
Unseen by clouds, steps gingerly in puddles

Mouse found, the moonlit cat
Flirts between play and kill

The mouse has no recourse to the law of chance
Reprieved, until the fatal pounce

Cat goddess has a dual self
A swirl of tail in the house
A domestic purr

Cat in the moonlight,
Death on dainty paws