Of Freud, Humming Birds, Byron And Greece (17 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1. Island of the Dead

Two men for a time, resided in Vienna
An Art School reject and a Jewish burgher.
Both admired Bocklin's 'Island of the Dead'.

'Finis Austriae, ' Freud wrote in his diary.
When Hitler in an open-topped Mercedes
Rode in triumph trumpeting the Reich
Distinguished professor to refugee at a stroke
Marooned in his home by bigots, racists, thugs
From freedom of the city to fleeing outcast
Books burned, his savings stolen for 'the cause'.

Now, his London desk's a mausoleum
To old and grubby gods who survived their master
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom's, centre-stage.

The curtain's closed, museum lights burn low
On Mummies' masks, on small carved Grecian Sphinx
Rembrandt's Moses, upholding the Ten Commandments
Here, in the home of the Patron Saint of Surrealism.
The analyst's couch is wearing a rug from Iran
With chenille cushions. The bookshelves groan with Goethe,
Shakespeare, Oedipus and Poe.

Freud's chair is weathered and leathered
It has listened to dreams of mountains, rocks, umbrellas
Balloons, pens, aerials, and the occasional snake
Interspersed with churches, passages, mussels,
Peaches and shells, to weird accounts of
Slipping, sliding, climbing, running, skipping.

Its owner escaped the Auschwitz Crematoria
For that of Golders Green, off Finchley Road.
Its grounds contain two ponds, a bridge,
A children's swinging bench, and crocus lawn.

He shares this place of final solution with Kossoff,
Kingsley Amis, H.G.Wells
Cancer deleted him from humanity's fabric,
And not a Nazi poison-sprinkler system.
Bocklin's 'Island of the Dead' may or may not
Have received that portion not of fleshly origin.

Hitler, twice-dead by shot and cyanide,
Doused with gasoline, shovelled in a shell-hole
May not have had his passport there permitted
Having created a drastic increase in deaths
So much, so much, the very trees protest.


2. Humming Bird

Luke told me what he'd liked about his childhood `
The humming birds that flew along the river
He loved their speed- the way they never stopped.

Two stars sat in his eyes as he described them.
He'd fried his brain on acid, Es and smack
Heard voices now, a hopeless schizophrenic
His long fair hair was lank, uncombed, a flop.

His pianist's fingers had grown beggar's nails
The local yobs would dog him to the shop
Relieve him of his benefits, declare
Undying friendship till his funds ran out,
Until one day some traffic light said
STOP inside his veins.

They soon re-let his flat
His life erased by paint, fresh air, a mop.


3. Evening Visit

The face itself is little changed
But for the glitter in her stare
Lit by Delusion's phantom lamps
Unreason is the tenant there

She talks of meetings in the woods
The scent of violets in her hair
With my dead father, warm and dark
Unreason lifts him from his lair

I watch her lips, they're bramble-blue,
Babble of kisses on the stair
Of how she danced last night till dawn
Unreason lays her memories bare

The folk she whispers of are ghosts
Distant, I listen in the chair
And watch the clock hands crawling round
Unreason's thrills are hard to share


4.Tower of the winds

The North Wind wears a heavy cloak. He blows a twisted shell.
The North East Wind upholds a shield of stones, that fall pell-mell

The South East Wind's an aged man wrapped tightly up in clothes
The South West Wind's a sailor-boy, ships hurry when he blows
The West Wind is a handsome boy who carries wreaths of flowers
The South Wind, strong and muscular, decants an urn of showers

The East Wind bears a load of fruit and grain within his sash
The North West Wind's a bearded man, his bronze pot full of ash

And round and round the Tower they go, they whisper, howl, or shout
The World's Winds, like dervishes that stir the air about


5. Overheard on the Metro

Hello? Helen?
Paris here. Just leaving the office now.
Getting into the Metro, dear.
Yes, I remembered the olives.
I made a Titanic effort to clear my desk
It's been Pandemonium at work since half past three
A Marathon, to meet the boss's deadlines.
Grace finally lost her Marbles
We always said she was a Nymphomaniac
Last night proved it. Eros was done in,
Called it a Pyrrhic victory.
You know he's no Apollo, bit of a Cretan, really.
It's known she sleeps with anything in pants.
Drink's her Nemesis, of course
A bottle of ouzo, she thinks she's a Siren

Eros vomited over my new Nike trainers
One Olympian binge too many
Wanted to pour his soul out. Well, I couldn't have that,
A right Pandora's box that would unlock!

Echo is the boss's Achilles heel.
Platonic relationship? Pull the other one!
She's such a yes-girl.
If he wasn't such a Narcissus
He'd see her for what she is.
Still, it pays to be stoical,
Discretion pays the rent,
And Menelaus's alimony, of course.


6. Athens

A drain-pipe ends in the pout of a fish's mouth
A brass door knocker's clenched in a knuckled fist
Flocks of clouds drift over the Heavens' blue fields

In the furnace of high summer it is 40 degrees and rising
The sun burns in the sky, its low red eye
Searing the flat-topped roofs, their jungle of aerials
Palm trees sprout in small parched balconies

Piratical taxi cabs cruise Piraeus Harbour
Yellow piranhas seeking unwary Euros
Iris from Gravesend, hair a ripple of waves,
Flags one down and climbs onto its seat

In an Athens agora, squat as a statue of Pan
Savros sits cross-legged on goat-skin rugs
Demetrius, serving wine in a roadside café
Could have stepped straight down
From a Theban amphora.

Andreas, humping cases behind a Spar
Seems to leapt off a silver coin from Cos
His bronze face framed by wild hair

Smiling like Helius,
Pallas Athene in sandals strides from the Metro
Laden with messages for a lovers' tryst

Veins on his neck like a bull,
Mythos, a back-street mechanic
Screws a jack beneath a leaky chassis

A toothless crone with a face like a satyr's mask
Wordlessly rattles a tin at passing shoppers

A Greek priest, tall as a column
Grey beard in a tangled fork
Strides past windows of the nouveau chic
Looking neither left nor right, black cassock flapping,
Smelling of goats and incense


7. Beach Group

From evening to a sunset tribal gatherings dine
Barefoot children toddle from lap to lap
Like monkeys in a troop
From grandma to uncle, father to cousin and back.

Greeks are expressive people
Nuzzling snuggling squeezing patting
Stroking caressing petting
Watching their brothers and sisters
Bobbing like grapes round the bay
Waving to one-winged butterflies,
Wind surfing in-laws riding the dolphin waves

Cliffs rise around like gorgonzola cheese
Like honeycombs of history

Beneath a battered Ford,
A piebald dog is furiously scratching its balls
Like a vendor clicking his worry beads for relief.

The waiter's hair is pulled back like a Sumo
Chest hair prickles like cactus through his shirt
He plumps across the sand in sandaled feet.

Five red toenails scratch a lover's thigh beneath a table
An old man smiles as a girl squeezes his crotch
Not her pater familias, evidently

Aegean beef-cake's plainly on the menu
Rib-cage pleasantly covered, olive-skinned
A bather ties back curls like luscious grapes
Dives in the pool, his horn of plenty
Curves in his wet, red trunks.

On the white tables under the blue sky
Beer sweats in glasses.
Men squat, bronzed frogs on scooters
Helmet-less in sunshades

Children's smiles are melon slices
Seeded by pearly teeth
A shuffling beggar dressed in polka dots
Thrusts posies at each table, mutters 'Please? '

After the sun sets,
Moon drops saucers of light
On an ink-black sea.
Masts of boats at anchor
Skewer the shadows


8. Byron was here

At Sounion, the old Aegean sea
Is sparkling polished turquoise, set in gold

The guide's monotone's like a buzz saw,
Her screed played over and over
On the grooved clefts of her tongue

Nearby's a small taverna, costs hiked high
As the headland, roughly shaped like an axe

The tiles are terra cotta, dusty, cracked.
The waiter in the noon ferocious sun
Looks to have been dipped in olive oil
Dripping from his brow, his arm, his chin

The tattered sun shade's faded, yellow ochre.
Flies peruse the photocopied menu.

Above the list of lattes, cappucchinos,
Wines and Greek dishes, above all that
A verse in English. (Lord Byron was here) .


9. Dog-fight at the Acropolis

Sixty marble steps lead up to Athena's portal
Gypsies, withered as walnuts dried in the sun
Are easily waved away, like troublesome flies

Kings of the Hill, top dogs, have come and gone
Persians, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Franks
Feudal Florentine Dukes and Turkish overlords

On every second step, a stray dog lies
Nose buried in paws, a mongrel colony
The city has them collared, strangers feed them
Under the gnarled boughs of the parched olives

A dog-fight starts. An alarmed tourist trips
The marble's sheer as glass, and treacherous.
The dogs challenge and snarl, salivate and chase
Until the pecking order's re-established

Like tourist guides, some act as canine escorts
Padding friendly, alongside family groups

The leader of this pack of cosmopolitans
Wrinkles his nose in a snarl, bares fearsome teeth
Tails between their legs, his subjects submit.
Democracy is not the beastly option.


10. The Porch of the Caryatids: The Sisters

2,000 years and more, six sisters stood
Hewn from the finest marble, Spartan maids
Guarding the divine relics, olive-wood
Athene, rising over cypress glades.
Where great Poseidon's trident struck the well
The temple serpent in his amber shades
Knew them as fixed, each graceful sentinel
They'd watch priestesses bringing honey cakes
To feed it. Listen to the rhythmic swell
Of the far sea that round Piraeus breaks
And venerate the dead as virgins should
Lit by the glow that lamp and incense makes

Through earthquakes, pestilence, the wrath of war
Six sisters stood unflinching at their post
Through centuries of Sun and Moon and Star
As different masters changed from flesh to ghost
Until the peaceful tenor of their home
Was ravaged by a Lord who sought to boast
He'd borne off Athen's finest. One alone
Was carried off to Britain's stormy shore

Men swear they hear her grieving sisters moan
Nightly, as to Athene they implore
Her intercession that the gods afar
Might bring her back, restore their sisterhood.


11.Delphi

Hundreds of wild goats race beside a lake
Under an adder-path of precipices
Where footfalls are precarious, speed's cathartic.

The road to Delphi passes ancient Thebes
The tomb and bridal bed of wronged Antigone
Her dead face gleams from every glass of wine

Almost, you hear the earth crack in the sun
The bones of the past rattle.
Between aisles of cypress trees.

Cotton sways, blood-red tomatoes burst
With sweetness, melons swell in the dirt.
Under a gnarled olive, white beehives
Spill their buzzing, sonorous hoard.

A stork on a church's dome is a painter's blob
On a palette of russets, ambers, ochres.
Villages ply their trade of rugs and cheese
Black, wrought-iron guards on shuttered windows
Keep out the sun's intrusions

Old men in sunglasses, leg-veins of twisted vines
Toil up village steps, straight from a sixties movie
The waiter has yet to clear a table's debris:
Grilled octopus, moussaka, salad, ouzo

In the shade, a baby tugs on a nursing mother's teat
A boy like a young wolf strokes the pelt of his thighs
Parnassus, the sacred hill, soars like a paeon
Rising up from the hyacinth gulf of Corinth
Eagles patrol the cliffs of Phaedriades

Sheltering in almond groves, obscured by
Peach and fig, greenfinches burble and chirrup

Down the evil stairway to His grove
An ancient tortoise crawls to visit Pan

I talk to the creature in Scots, it's Greek to him.
He's standing chairy, wearing his Spartan shields

The sacred way is a flagstone walk through fire
Under a sun that almost melts the marble
Slippery white as a downhill Alpine ski-run

Above, an amphitheatre built of stone
That overlooked the ancient Pythian Games.
Apollo's temple dominates the mountain
Dwarfing the tips of cypress minarets

The world has worn a shiny path to this door
Once lined with statues, shrines and offerings
Gold treasure houses, thronged with potentates
Looted by Nero, close by the earth's navel.

Here squealing sheep and cattle reddened altars
Their pulsing entrails searched by priests for omens,
Here, spoke the drugged Sybil, high on her rock,
In its mantle of ivy and sulphur.

Today, the oracle's silent.
I sit and listen, waiting for a sign.
The trees release the whirr and clack of cicadas
Seven years buried under the dark soil,
For one short summer, pouring out their song


12. Adios Amigo

People are kind to pets, you know,
So when senility starts to show
The mice run quicker, the paws slow down
The fish in the dish meets a weary frown
And the fiercest Tom's too tired to scratch
Or rip the flowers from a neighbour's patch `
Just hold him gently, he won't feel a thing, '
Says the vet. 'It's quick as a wee bee sting.'

A prick, a sigh as he turned his head
And the terror of garden and lawn was dead.
How pleasant, I thought, to go like that!
Like a glass of fizz before it's flat
No pain, no trouble, no mess, no fuss
And no return on Departure's bus.


13. The Melancholy Shark

Oblivious to the grace notes of religion
In the green chaotic fathoms of the deep
The melancholy shark, is needless of love

In the enormity of his moronic grin
Sleek and diabolic, he crunches mariners
Bones strum his cold heart's rhythms
He lacerates fish openly, too proud to hide.

He has no hatred of the sun, filtering down
To his foggy, glassy kingdom

No book or mentor ever taught him abstinence
He is a lost cause, indifferent to blame or applause


14.View from a Rooftop Restaurant

I am the moon,
Tossed in the air and hanging.
Far below, the sleepless city
Traffics in secrets, transactions, intimacies
Too far off to decipher

White tea-lights flicker side-ways in the saucer
The paper table-cloth raises its lacy wings
Impatient to be off.

I am Icarus, atrophied, Dried like an old dead fly
Heights appal me, the perspective of birds and angels
I would rather be a frog
Sinking into myself like a tired sofa

Behind me, I hear the crackle of friendly fire
Between two lovers sucked into love's flame
I am not myself up here, on the ledge of a cloud
My cats' eyes narrow and burn
Two steps away from the edge of unbecoming


15. A Little Daub of Paint

Wife number one, Catherine of Aragon
Was Henry's cross, a Catholic paragon
Not to his taste, more rue than tarragon

Wife number two, was lusty Anne Boleyn
A mistress first, a beauty schooled in sin
She lost her head for love, poor Magdalene

Wife number three, Jane Seymour, bore a son
Dying in child-bed, when the act was done
From palace to a grave location.

Wife number four was difficult to find
Europe was scoured. The bride must be refined
But sensual. The King would not wed blind.

Holbein was sent to sketch the candidate
The portrait seemed to frame the perfect mate
All was concluded with the pomp of state

A portrait may be true, as a tongue talks
But this one lied. Sly colours from the box
Concealed that Anne was pitted by smallpox

The painter lived. The wife was quickly shed
Cromwell, who'd brought her to the Tudor's bed
Within six months, by Royal decree, was dead


16. St Kilda (Hirta)

A thousand feet of stormy rock and cliff
A slice of land beyond the Hebrides
A land of rain and mist where winds blow stiff
At blunt Eirde houses. Zephyr, gale or breeze
Pour round this lost Atlantis. Druid's bones,
And Viking's rotted long-ship take their ease.

Norse-Gaels once clawed a living from these stones
Caught fulmar, puffin, gannet, razorbill
Kittiwake, petrel. Cattle gave them cheese
They brewed their beer from nettle on the hill

St Kildan sheep, long fleeced, were fleet as goats
The seabirds, rendered down would serve to fill
Pillow and mattress. Off on fishing boats
Cargos of tallow, mutton, quill and feather
Medicine for rheumatism, sprains, sore throats

Inside their Cleit storehouses, built to weather
The storms of winter, stores of meat and meal.
Their own black houses battened down to tether
Thatched roofs where folk and sheep dogs brought to heel
Could huddle round the comfort of the fire
Lay down the fowler's hook, the fishing creel.

A simple life of cliff and brae and byre.
Over the centuries, how many fell
Plucked from some dizzy crag's unholy spire?
A superstitious people, rag and shell
They'd lay in pagan ritual by some nook
Beside the waters of a healing well.

They closed the pages of their island book
Boarded the Harebell, sailed across the sea
Leaving an open Bible in each home
Drowned family dogs but turned their pet cats free
Leaving their land to storm and sun and foam
Now gannets rule this sea bird sanctuary.


17. Telling

I could tell you the truth
I would have liked to pour out a Colossus
To bridge the world's divides
Fractured by loaves and fishes

But my tongue is forked like a snake
I am always in two minds
One day I'll float away
To a land of cherries and madrigals
Like a Chinese juggler's plate,
Rattling down to silence

They may personalise my gravestone with a cormorant
A gypsy, a thorn will rise to meet me.