The Rabbit Man: English Poems Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Queen Victoria's Grave Goods
In her coffin, the Queen-Empress wore
The simple wedding band
Of the mother of John Brown,
And lay with a photograph of John Brown,
And a clutch of his letters
And a lock of John Brown's hair
Wrapped up in tissue.
Besides a sprig of Balmoral heather,
Entombed with her for eternity

She was also interred with
A cast of the hand of Prince Albert.
His photograph,
His handkerchief
His wedding ring
One of the cloaks,
Princess Alice embroidered for him

Under her corpse was a layer of charcoal,
To soak up the unpleasant smells of decomposition,
With Prince Albert's dressing gown

The corpse was weighted down
With lockets and bracelets
A silken embroidered case by Annie MacDonald
Her favourite wardrobe maid,
In the Queen's left hand,

She wore her white bridal veil in death
At her military funeral, as she requested
Taking mementoes of Deeside into eternity.


Remains
I could say I wasn't myself
When I let you suffer

For years I stood outside the world
Looking in, like a penniless child
At a toy shop window
As if life was happening at a remote
To people called me and you

I would like to take petrol into the past
Pour it over every miserable memory
Stuff a gag into every thoughtless
Word that caused you pain
And torch it all

Now, I stand outside your world of earth
Looking down on your roof of earth
Like an animal drawn to a waterhole
I return again and again to your remains


The Necklace
20 feet up from the river
The peat brown, amber river
Gliding like liquid glass
Mirror of sky, cloud, tree
Was the woodland path
Hard trampled dirt and dust

I was ten, and June was a blaze of green
A lattice of oak and beech leaves
A swish at the tail of the hill
Of Craigendarroch

I was walking my favourite walk
Along with the music of water
The flutter of birds through branches

I nearly stood on it
A living, glittering necklace
Lead grey with diamond markings
Of black down its coiled back

It was one foot long
Dappled by tree light and sun
Like the torc from the neck
Of an ancient Celtic king

I stood stone still
As its tongue flickered twice below me
And then, I pocketed it
In my brother's short cropped
Hand-down dungarees
It lay in the secret dark,
Motionless. Later I lifted it up like a trophy
A precious prize to display

Mother gasped, struck it out of my hand
It slithered into the ingle
Despatched by a poker.

So I learned that necklaces could hurt
Dead and inert it lay like a bloodied noose



Wigs
In Ancient Egypt, if you were high-ranking
Your wig was dressed with beeswax, perfume, resin
In Ancient Rome the ladies went for style
Wore hair from captured prisoners by the dozen

In England, in the 13th century
Horn-like cornettoes rose from women's' heads
Stuffed up with cotton, wool to gain the look
Like ice-cream cones upturned by noble neds

Through the Elizabethan, Jacobean eras
Ladies' hair was tight-curled with wide puffs,
On over wired supports or pads, bigwigs
To match their starched and most uncomfy neds

Queen Anne of Denmark liked an upswept version
A pale blonde coiffure stuffed with diamonds, jewels
Men said she looked exactly like a sunflower'
With a wig big enough to carry tools

And in past unhygienic centuries
Hair often was alive with breeding lice,
Much easier to delouse a false piece
To rid the horrid legions, worth the price
Then came ‘peruke' or ‘periwig' in England.
Of human hair, of horsehair, goat or sheep
Beloved of lawyers, worn even now
In Justice Halls where judges justice keep

What of the towering, powdered strange coiffure
Of macaronis, fops and dilettantes
Today, the Andy Warhols of this world
Would look at those, declare them utter plants

Today, Heh Jimmy hats' red hair is cheap
Look on that hair, Pitt, Mozart, Brahms and Liszt
You're not persuaded you would put one on?
Well maybe, if you're well and truly pissed

Nit's eggs are killed by boiling the wig hair
In an acetic acid strong solution
Is disinfected, dried in a warm stove
Ready to give the baldest, hair profusion

John Wayne & Dolly Parton, Bing Crosby
Along with Bogart and Sean Connery
Were not averse to popping on a rug
To add to their filmatic mystery

So vive the wig, the toupee and the weave
And all who wear them, proudly to deceive


Zoom
Abracadabra, Kaboom
Eureka! I now chat on Zoom
Like a Triceratops
Who has pulled out the stops
My IT skills have burst into bloom


Between the Sea and the Shore
Three generations we walk along the sand
The buoyant sea is juddering to the shore
Over the shingling rocks, the broken shells

Sea time is visible and elusive, ebb and flow
Soon I'll be the one to go, the youngest still owns the horizon.

Driftwood, crabclaw, mussels
Rest in their own shadows, snarled in plastic net
Their identity rubbed away by abrasive tides

Clouds roll on the sea obscuring anchored oil ships
The shrinking fleet of a fading industry.

The little one claps her hands. Everything's new!
She dances with delight. I drag my feet.

To me, it's a well-worn beach. I'm a semi colon.
She is an exclamation mark. Her mother is two careful brackets
Keeping her treasure safe.

In the nearby fishing village, time is frozen
Only the tenants change, the houses remain.
The day breaks on the pebbles. The struggling sun stays hidden


It's All Greek to me
Eureka! A summer job!
The kudos of immersion in the exotic…

Opening a coffee tin, red insects
Flowed like lava over the sides

Ever since I've had a phobia of bugs
Anathema to any western palate

But the café, green glass bottles, candlelight
The wine, the stuffed vine leaves, the warmth
Eros held in a room, with the sons of Aphrodite


LockdownXX:
In the Cabrach, in a woodland pool
A dumped chair sinks incongruous in mud
An empty picture frame leans against a tree
A surreal picture. Papers and glitter
Garishly choke the water, in litter mayhem

Outside a shopping mall, rows and rows of trolleys
Mourn the loss of customers

Few are coming home to near empty stations
Strangers cast long shadows

Across the world, in the favela
OfParaisopolis, as if violent shoot-outs,
Open sewage, drug traffickers weren't enough
Street presidents check everyone,
Select a quarantine house for self isolation
The poor, helping the poor

Here, the vulnerable huddle in Duvet Land
Hugging the safety of their beds
Butterflies turn out to be sweet wrappers
Blown against a window

In America, some known only to God
The illegals, die of corona far away from home

Foxes play unchecked in the sunny woodlands
A girl with a cancelled ticket
Stares at her unneeded map

A Japanese peacock struts in the zoo
Is quietly pleased no strangers come to stare

Meanwhile alone on the seashore
A man and four black headed gulls
Compete for shellfish

Locked down, we turn archaeologist
Rake over dead ashes, pick invisible scabs


Clutch
Women of a certain age
Have empty nest syndrome
Dress up in evening wear
Carry a clutch bag of treasures

Perfume, housekeys, mobile
Money, lipstick, creams

Crows, on the other hand
Have a clutch of eggs

I know a man up a glen
Who lives in a bowie,
Built from the land around
He has a front seat at the premiere of each dawn

Once a year he washes his smalls
And dries them on a tree