Sheena Blackhall Poems

If you see a jumbo flying over Sumnavoe
Don't treat him like a leper or an alien UFO.
Please don't write letters to the Times, or text an air controller
If, high above Auld Reekie's roofs, he lights up a Corolla.
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In the writers' farm I am free-range;
I don't want my eggs in one basket,
I want to be broody in lark's houses,
In hare's forms.
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I loved to hear him gasp with scared delight
Safe in my grasp, as we slid down the peat
Between the fir tree branches, low with cones
Close to the thundering Falls on angled feet
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I would like to tell this poem why I write,
This paper I drag my pen along,
Like a thin shadow.
The paper listens deeply.
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God only likes nice girls and tidy boys,
But you sat down with me, un-nice, no-good
In a way that nobody's parents ever would.
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Waves topple like skittles down the beach
A gecko is the room’s unpaying guest
Sinbad sailed these seas by such a moon
The old colonial bed stands on stiff legs
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It’s an October day. In Scotland, chilled by frost
The loyal robin shivers, others flee the coop.
Already Christmas tills ring up the cost
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The brass pot is suspended overhead
I must lie still, beneath the scented oil
A neck stand is supplied, a towelled bed
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Cambridge is Brueghel's Village come to life
Warren of Gothic windows, red brick walls
Eating, laughing, drinking on the streets
Visitors throng the eateries and halls
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1.Chanticleer’s Comb

Chanticleer’s comb is fiery red
Sixteen wives he takes to bed
Sixteen wives, each one with egg
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