Sheena Blackhall Poems

Around me lie my farming ancestors
We are united, kith and kin together
They are beyond life's sorrows and its pleasures
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The Mushroom Poem
Amethyst deceiver, the miller, the blusher
Ox's tongue, Jew's ear, lawyer's wig
Pied de mouton, chicken of the woods
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This poem is based on the recollections of an eye witness called Leboucher, who arrived in Paris from Bourges in December,1792, and was present at the execution of Louis XVI. In 1840 he recounted to Victor Hugo most of these details.

The Execution of Louis XVI
In the Year II of the Republic, on a bitter winter's day
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Spell 125 from the Book of the Dead.
Gaun forrit intae the traivels o the deid
Yer life an deeds are judged bi the god Osiris
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The Wound of Grief has many Mouths
See what you miss by being dead?
You could have been drinking beer in the warm sun
You could have been singing your favourite, Country Roads
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Each day since then I set my bones in motion
The dart of death came quick, then you were gone
A sudden cloud of black eclipsed the sun
Three days you lay alone my eldest one
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369th WW1 Infantry
Private Henry Johnson of Albany, New York,
His French Lebel rifle firmly in his hand
Peered into the dreary wastes of no-man's-land
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Egypt's the home of sacred crocodile
That slide along the waters of the Nile
Wearing their horrid, false, deceiving smile
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The voice of the laundry says
When are you going to wash me?
The dust on the side of the stairs
Pleads hoover me up
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I am a walking pharmacy
Bendroflumethiazide
It stops fluid retention
My pill policeman inside
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