The Black Sky Blowing (English Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Visit to a Show Farm

Animals and public are separated by a Berlin wall
We are warned to sanitize our hands, for our own protection

Ewe looks at mother and toddler. The toddler rests in a buggy
Ewe returns to her lamb, headbutts it into standing
Drives it with a hooftowards her udder
The toddler's dressed to kill, designer gear
The new born lamb is wearing a skin one size too big
Wrinkled like Nora Batty's tights. It's made for growth

Two different types of parenting skills
Baa, says the ewe in her throaty contralto
The toddler sucks a humbug


Cockerel

His wattles are scarlet with rage.
They jiggle like empty scrotum bags
His coxcomb's erect with pride
The black bead of his eye is set in amber glass

His neck feathers plufflike an opening umbrella
His beak releases a shrill cockadoodledoo
Within the feathered hull of his martial breast
Lies the wish bone others will snap

His legs are scaly's the mail of an armoured knight
Flashing silver as he high steps over the courtyard
His spurs look sharp and deadly
How gingerly does he raise each leg in turn
As if picking his way through a minefield


Gretna

Coaches decant their loads of vintage shoppers
For comfort breaks, to hoover up the bargains
A small boy kicks a ball next to a window
Pensioners stagger, pack horses, from the sales
Turbulent toddlers bounce on trampolines
This is the mecca of trading, tea and scones
Queues shuffle forward to the tills
A Yorkshire terrier trots from a lady's loo


At the Magic Market

I went to the magic market and I bought
A melon of moonstone
A tonsure of daffodils
A sockful of seafoam
Twenty Deacon Brodie fridge magnets
A cathedral of cockroaches
A sneeze of scapegoats
Ten minutes with William Wallace
A deerskull of iron bru
A smidgeon of kingfisher
A cloudful of larks
A sou-wester of lace
Six boxing gloves of tomatoes
A helicopter of marzipan
A stage of dancing anemones
A hopscotch of canaries
A hatch of cream faced violets
Two polkas in a bramble pie


Multi-tasking in Kendal

The manager of a jewellery shop is standing out in the street
Zealously washing the windows dressed in his three piece suit

White shirt, collar and tie, he could be a manikin
But with bright yellow marigolds to keep his hands from wrinkling
The shine of his bald head, mirrored in the sparkle of diamonds
Rubies, emeralds. Cleaning is not written into his assistants' contracts
He has the most hygenic hands in the whole of Kendal


Sir RichardBranson

This dyslexic boy left school at fifteen
Now his business is everywhere
His mother predicted
That he would become P.M.
His headmaster, predicted
He'd end up in prison
Or be a millionaire

Aged thirteen he grew Xmas trees for sale
Reared parakeets for selling on as pets
An entrepreneur who never admits regrets

From self confessed Trekkie
To the owner of Virgin Galactic,
As tricksy as Jiminy Cricket
He runs suborbital flights into space
A snip at 250,000dollarsper ticket

His home is Necker Island,
With his Necker Nymph submarine
You can stay one night at a villa
For a mere 27,000 dollars
(The price is not obscene
If you're a celebrity with very deep pockets)

If you were to visit that scene
Your eyes would pop out of their sockets!

He owns a pet tortoise called Brutus
With a shell like a pastry pie
He ran a London marathon
Dressed as a butterfly

His mother, a ballerina
Gave him charisma, flair
His father was a barrister
Gave him brains to climb Life's stair

His motto is Screw it, Let's do it
This man who balloons in the buff

Air travel, music, drinks, phones
Bikes, cosmetics, mail order, drones
At least 400 enterprises
Hire cars, weddings, safari park
He's got the Midas touch
With a business portfolio,
Worthy of Noah's Ark

He bought the gay nightclub Heaven
RunsComics and Animation
On the look out for new opportunities
Toboost with transformation

He's always up for a challenge
He hikes, bikes, kayaks, sails
Has bit parts in famous movies
He probably sings with whales

His Island home was destroyed
When Hurricane Irma hit.
His Island home was damaged
When Hurricane Irene blitzed
But, like his favourite character Peter Pan,
He rises above adversity
Recover, rebuild, refit

His motto is Screw it, Let's do it
This man who balloons in the buff
Success breeds success to the man
To whom one win is never enough


Elgar

I am listening to Elgar's Enigma Variations
Musically back-pedalling through time

I reflect that each one bears a cryptic subtitle
Picked from the bones of his life
His publisher

An organist's bulldog, Dan
His loyal wife

With his handlebar moustache
He sits on his Royal Sunbeam bike named Mr. Phoebus

And what of his places of work? What of them?
Conductor at the Worcester & CountyLunatic Asylum
Did he orchestrate the downs of melancholia?
Did he write crescendos for the highs ofmania?
Did he empathise with a world gone lickety splat?

I imagine him striding off in the rain
Professor of violin, the grand musician
At the College for the blind sons of gentlemen
With his high starched collar, elegant gloves
With his noble brow, every inch the groomed patrician
Chemist, composer, cyclist
Three odd strings to his bow
His music shall not grow old in the Land of Hope and Glory
The Dream of Gerontius, Nimrod

Sixty five roads in England are named after him
And one grand locomotive, now withdrawn


Bus Trip to the Unknown

The landscape is moving, top speed
Ripping along like a film reel
Rain over ploughed fields, raucous gulls
Viewed from the warm cocoon that is a bus
Fast forward to a roundabout
Trees flow in the wind like eels

My brain's an emptied bucket
Open's the mouth of a well
Today I am Anon, thirsty for water
Today I am an explorer, plunging
Into whatever a new day holds
Today I am an old pike
Letting the rapids of movement
Carry me into pools of contemplation
Or bone-shaking waterfalls of discovery


The Field of the Cloth of Gold

In June 1520,Henry VIII and Francis I of France
Meet for a fortnight in the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
Near Calais. Two Renaissance princes, strutting
And fluffing their plumage like fighting cocks

Henry constructed a well -staged palace of timber
His court erected grand pavilions and tents.
On Corpus Christi day, the monarchs met

Henry brought with him 500 horsemen,3,000 foot soldiers,
Heralds, officers of arms, his nobles and his queen
With her ladies-in-waiting - all riding in litters
Or carried in sedan chairs with gorgeous embroidery.
Others rode up on richly clothed handsome palfreys

Then, came the jousts. Henry's armour-skirt and horse-trapper
Festooned with 2,000 ounces of gold and 1,100 magnificent pearls

At the feasts, two royal monkeys capered, covered in gold leaf
Gifts from the Ottoman Sultan, Selim I
Red wine flowed from to fountains
Henry's retinue during the stay
Ate 2200 sheep and other meats
This near bankrupted the treasuries
Of England and France.

At each feast there were 14 courses
Steeped in spices. Cloves, cinnamon, pepper, mace
Each course began with a subtlety.
A castle of marzipan, a mythical beast composed of spun sugar and wax.
The tables groaned with pork or mutton, peacocks, herons, egrets,
Swans, geese, mallards, rabbits, capons, and hares.
On Fridays whales and porpoise, a favourite of Henry's Queen Catherine
Would appear, with eels, cod, herring, crabs, trout, salmon, deer,
Oxen, calves, and nutmeg, and Henry's favourite, lemon syllabub

Meanwhile, back in England, a serf in Sussex,
Watt the Thatcher, chews his black bread
With his three remaining teeth
Scratches the fleas in his shirt
Scrapes his bowl clean of greasy, sticky, pottage


What You Don't get for a Fiver

A day out at Crathes Castle
A pair of shoes from Oxfam
A ticket to the cinema
A taxi in Aberdeen
Forgiveness for my sins
Liposcuction
New teeth
A cremation
Yesterday
An immortal daffodil
A fresh start
The road not taken
A fish supper
A kiss from a dead grandmother


Icons

We are the Falkirk kelpies
We are the heads of shape shifting water spirits
We stand by the Forth & Clyde canal
We are the monument to horse power, our equine kin
Those who pulled ploughs, hauled barges and coalships
Who died in the mud of Flanders

We are formed from stainless steel, weigh 300 tonnes each.
Thirty metres high
Guardians of a gateway into Scotland

……………………………………………………………………………………

I am the Angel of the North
Located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
I am sculpted from steel
20 metres tall

My wingsare angled 3.5 degrees forward;
As if to embrace the world

I stand on the hill of Birtley
Under my feet, , coal miners worked for centuries
I'm a very expensive Angel: £800,000
I'm built to withstand winds of over 100 mph
My foundations contain 600 tonnes of concrete

I'm a massive anchor
I'm the landmark for North East England
I'm the Gateshead Flasher


It's all in the Names

Troutbeck, Yewbarrow, Crow Park, Hummer Lane
Black Combe, Crinkle Crags, Wrynose tops, Buttermere
Pike o Sickle. Ravenglass. Hardknott Place, Patterdale
Corpse Road, Fiend's Fell, Hen Comb, Mickledore

Swirl How, Sourmilk Gill, Brockhole, Wren Crag
Wythburn's Bogs, Thack Moor, Steel Fell, Slapestone Edge
High Skelghyll, Holbeck Lane, White Maiden, Caw Moss
Kisher Wood, Hellvellyn, Thirlmere, Birks Bridge


Settle

A red phone box in Settle,
Is the smallest public art gallery in the world
This indicates an original mind set
In the ancient parish of Gigglewick

As illustrated by the gravestone of Luke Ralph,
Died 1849, in a cold spring,
Who wrote his own epitaph for the future:

‘My sledge and hammer both declined
My bellows they have lost the wind
My fire extinct, my forge decayed
And in the dust my vice is laid
My coals have spent, my iron gone
My nails are drove, my work is done'

How many gravestones share their owner's stories?
This graveyard at Holy Ascension holds many secrets
Stories of innkeepers, doctors, and others lying there
Gardeners, plumbers,paupers. twenty navvies who died
Here villagers mine the history of their forebears


The Oddity

On the street where he lived
He was the oddity, a piece of Mars rock
He'd the scorpion sting of a tongue
He was a storm cloud walking
A colony of wasps lived in shed
His nearest neighbours
He'd say his piece like a terrible flood
Not waiting for a reply
The guest no one ever invited

His belly was a wobbly castle
His eyes like two frogs' eggs
Cataract bleary and peering

His head had two landing strips of black
On the balding crown

He was the type of man
Men said would dismember cats

After he died a local reporter
Discovered that he'd been suffering
From post traumatic stress

After he died, neighbours were mildly regretful
But only mildly


Pothole Country

Ruined steadings stand
With gaps like an old man's mouth
Teeth gradually dropping out

Craven pothole club hut
For those who want to check out Pluto's underworld
Riddled like a gorgonzola cheese

Would you plumb Gaping Gill
322feet down,
A mighty underground cave
TheFell Beck falling through it?

Here are some I'm never going to try
Jib Tunnel
Disappointment Pot
Rat Hole
Flood Entrance Pot

Who'd want to risk their lives
In the dark
In subterranean horrors
Like a mole
Or a deep down badger?


The Black Sky Blowing

The black sky blew into the house
Carrying the debris of disappointments
The twist of knots too long, too tight to unravel

The black sky blew into the house
Dropping the rotten leaves of memories
Stripped of autumnal finery
Wearing the motley suit of burial vaults

The black sky blew into the house
Bearing shadows of the shrouded dead

I tick of the days now like a metronome
Used up laughter seeps away down cracks in the floorboards

The dark sky blows open the door of my mother's wardrobe
Her furs whisper to each other
Her full mink coat growls at her musquash jacket
Her fox head stole bares its teeth at her astrakhan muff

Her hats of pheasant's feathers cackle under the stars
Bats flutter in my ears, squeaking like mouse

Oh the softness of those satin-lined slinky furs
Warm, comforting, a gift from one animal to another
Bypassing their owner altogether

Moron, moron, says the mocking adult voice
To my childhood self, because of my Scottish tongue

The black sky blew into the house
Keening into the subterranean crannies

So many dead ends,
So many cul-de-sacs
Side-tracks and shifting sands

Worries like frantic sparrows
Wheeling blind through the dark


Into the Quietness

In Victorian Britain, Amelia Dyer ran a baby farm starving her little charges, killing them with daily doses of laudanum, colloquially called "the quietness". She murdered between 200-400 babies.

Welcome to Junkie oblivion. Step through the gate of a thousand sorrows
To the laudanum quietness of Victorian baby farms

Welcome to the poppy's nest of scorpions
Where Branwell Bronte, painted himself
Out of the family picture, where De Quincey
Sank into the shifting sands of his own apocalypse

Welcome to the world of nightmare, stupefaction
To opium dens, where the zonked out smoked the pipe
Coleridge, De Quincy, the dabblers, Byron, Keats

Light the Black Candle. The Accurséd Crocodile waits
In the black hole where sanity disappears
See the shadows ofCarroll, of Piaf, France's little sparrow
Bombs Away, Bull Dog, Woo Woo, Smack, Scag, Skunk

Welcome to the strung out gallery, birds on the wire
Sid Vicious, Peaches Geldof, Janis Joplin
Dee Dee Ramone, Paula Yates, the car crash, Winehouse
Ace of Spades, Horse, Junk, Tar, spike, spoon, syringe
Meet the falling stars: Judy Garland Billie Holliday

Welcome to the flesh eater, the Holy Terror, Hell Dust
Addicts with faces like skulls, like stick men, beg in the street
In thrall to the Golden Girl, the White Lady, the Black Pearl
Eyes pinned, abscesses leaking from needle pricks

Chasing the dragon, shooting up,
The lights go out across the generations
Swung between gouching out, or rattling
Teeth gone, all veins collapsed, into the quietness
Somebody's lover, mother, father, daughter, son