Sheena Blackhall Poems

Gaunt cheeked, spindle-limbed
This exclamation mark of life-sized famine sculptures
Frozen in time, pull you up to a full stop
On their way to the coffin ships on Dublin’s Quay.
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High walls and watchtowers loom around the place
This cemetery once needed guards with guns
To keep the dead safe from the body snatchers
Bloodhounds protected Dublin’s buried sons
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Producers’ heaven, that’s Kilmainham jail
Five famous films made here, give it street cred
Its walls stout built to keep out storm and hail
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1.Scurries Rule OK!
Scurries skyte aroon the schules
Fleggin bairns an brakkin rules
Pooin on the teachers’ cars
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The wife and I go where there’s sun and sand
We watch the pennies, fly where it is cheap!
Australia’s too far at our age, and daunting
With sharks that rise attacking from the deep
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1. Swans
Four swans transform into people,
Aodh, Fionnula Fiachra and Conn
Like molten rubber, stretching and writhing,
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A Catholic mother with Irish roots
Babe in the womb with an Indian view
Sitars, tablas, tambura drum
Heard in a terraced house with outside loo
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Every man has a woman who loves him
He was a big hit with wife number one
They were married on borrowed time
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Once upon a Long Ago
His mother was an Angel in Disguise
Early Days, at 3am, she cycled through snow
A midwife answering every baby’s request
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Richard Starkey, MBE,
an only child with rhythm in his bones
In and out of hospital, caught TB,
here’s what he said of his early homes
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