18 English Poems 2017 Poem by Sheena Blackhall

18.English Poems,2017

1.Baby Boomer Blues
My teeth fall out like Autumn apples
I have a dormouse need for sleep
My hair is greying, veins are gnarling
The smallest slope is Eiger steep
Where once I ran, I jumped, I grumbled
Now I shuffle, ache and creak


2.Butterfly in Autumn
A closed book on a wall
Butterfly opens her paper thin wings
Calvinist cover becoming a golden bestiary


3.Not Climbing Beinn An-t-Sidhean
The legend says
To spend the summer solstice on its peak
You climb down either mad, or else a bard
Not climbing Beinn An-t-Sidhean I am both


4. Interrogating a Tree
What do you think of, here in the valley?
Storms and seasons, squirrels, constant rain
Do you grow weary, tethered and rooted?
Acceptance brings wisdom. No address. No name

How do you endure it, alone through the decades?
Wind strokes my branches. Sunlight makes me shine
Each moment's different- a leaf fall or a shimmer
How could I despise this little place that's mine


5. Dear Body
Dear Body,
Please shrink
Put simply I'd like less of you
Lately, you've begun to resemble a space hopper
Your surplus skin's like Norah Battie's tights

Gums stop receding now
My mouth's become a piano arpeggios

Ears, you've diminished my powers
Of eavesdropping on buses
Aborting many a juicy scandal tale

Eyes without spec-aid from Boots
Sight would be looking through candyfloss into fog

Colon…thank you for growing a polyp the sixe of a cherry
The surgeon was so proud…he held it up like a ruby

Bowel. Now that you're hoisted up
Stitched up by the NHS
Everything else lurched forward like a crash
The abdominal hernia's a belly globe of skin

Did I mention you, nails?
All ridged like a furrowed field

Hair, for the cost of my electrolysis
I could have enjoyed six world cruises
I keep away from mirrors on the whole
No woman wants to go bearded like a goat
Moustachioed like a Venezuelan drug lord
Body…don't get me started on the soul


6. Meditation no 7
Splitting the cloud, I raise my eyes to stare
At sunlight pouring down its golden gift
Here silence is as comforting as prayer
Here thoughts dissolve and worries start to lift

Speed is best suited to impulsive youth
Emotions thunder forward like a train
With time comes patience, the pursuit of truth
The yin and yang of pleasure split with pain

Beyond the shrine room a sleek blackbird calls
Torn twigs embody suffering and loss
But meditation buffers sudden squalls
And slowly thoughts slip down like sinking dross

Here's Autumn….the white turning of the hare
When field and sky and wood are stripped buff bare


7. Padma's Haiku
Here's Padma the cat
Four bouncing paws of lightness
Tail, a pirate's flag


8. Monday in the Glen
Larch hangs her emerald fringes down
Sudded with cones and drops of dew
The bird's tiny blades of leaf
Have windows where the sun peeps through

The mist is steaming up the ben
The loch glints silver, mirror calm
The air is still in its cloud den
The wren's small tweet's a woodland psalm

And this is Autumn at its best
Kenspeckled in her piebald best


9. This Morning: 4 Haikus
To the loch's surprise
Transforming into a crane
I soared to the clouds

I imagine frogs
When it is drizzling
With green dripping legs

What I want to say
Is let life pass in whispers
Like a breeze though grass

Dark figures on a dark day
Sheep huddle like stones
Druidic and still


10.Ten Haiku on a Rain Walk
Smoker alert… here
Wet cigarette ends lying
Dropped core of apple

An oak tree green and groaning
Ferns guarding a gate
Sheep watch sheepishly

Felled log, its age in circles
Squirrels evicted
No limbs left to sway

A shrine room up in the mountain
Blue, green, yellow, red
Frayed prayer flags flutter

Rain makes the burn run bolder
Leaves fall one by one
Like parachutists

No guests to care for
Bird table's a spirit house
Even the cat's gone

Somewhere a drain is gurgling
Temple bell…6 drips
Hang like elephant's tears

From the compost box
No buzz of ravenous flies
Rain soaked they're grounded

The path's become a river
Ferrying lealets
Origami boats

Day…but where's the birds?
The sky misses them
Their song, their graceful movements


11.Hedgehog (3)
My vision is blurry
My girth is roly-poly
I think I have hedgehog genes

I am prickly to prove it
Try not to draw too close
You'll feel me scratch
Like Robert the Bruce's schiltrons
Prickles in all directions


12.When the Unexpected Happens
My heart turns to ice. I freeze the moment
I like to unwrap the unexpected, later, like a spider

I prefer the unexpected to make an appointment
It is as welcome as a descending chainsaw

Death is the one exception
My funeral's pre-paid. my passport's stamped


13.Winter Solstice
Strychnine, Hemlock, Digitalis
Winter Solstice, raucous crow
Ricin, Poppy, Deadly Nightshade
Blood red skies, the time of snow

Laburnum, Laurel, Belladonna
Druids bless the mistletoe
Hellebore, Henbane, Angel's Trumpet
Pagan's fires crackle, glow

Light the yule log, light the candle
Cheer the Season of the Crone
Spring will soon bring in the Maiden
Growing flesh upon bare bone


14.Once Upon a Time (2)
Once upon a time I believed in everything
I thought I was cock of the midden
Walked hand-in-hand with happiness

Life dropped its usual bombshells
I was collateral damage

Hope performed the Indian rope trick
Shinnied into the clouds and disappeared

My jewels were paste, delight was counterfeit
With each new pregnancy, my hips widened

I was a tree dropping apples
Bruised by unforgiving ground
Violet stains on their hearts

Love was water, cupped in the hand
Trickling away like sand


15. The Merkin
Did Charles the Second wear a merkin?
Nell Gwyn and others could be certain
An intimate adornment that
Was hairy as a pussycat

Worn like a sporran, under tartan
Or serviette to mask a guerkin
A merkin helps, (loose women hark) ,
To hide the pox that leaves its mark


16.Am Fear Liath Mòr (The Big Grey Man)
Near to the cairn on the summit
Through swirling mist
The crunch of eerie footsteps
Follow the terrified walker
Down to the Rothiemurchus Forest.

Respectable walkers, climbers
Many have felt that fear on Ben Macdui
At times of crusty snow, the dogged footsteps
Raising the neck's hackles

Gamekeepers and stalkers will not speak of him
This creature of the mist, the snow, the ice

Witnesses describe him: ten feet tall
Long legged long armed, matted in thick grey fur
Menacing stalker of the paranormal
Guardian of the gateway to the strange


17.Eas a' Chual Aluinn (Highland Waterfall)
Strum on the clarsach! The sun's in the skies
She shines on the linn of descending commotion,
All those who love grandeur, come lift up your eyes,
Tramp over the bog, that's a heathery ocean.

A ribbon of water- the brightest, the lightest,
Those beautiful waves, tumble down to be heard
Like the whirring of wings on the air as she rises
The tremulous flight of the peregrine bird

Come, seek out the beauty, so shy and so rare,
That drops like a virgin's hair combed to the heath
Her tresses like fireflies dance through the air,
So wild, so shimmering above and beneath!


18. The Birth o Atholl Brose
The mighty giant of Atholl,
Was gluttonous and fleet,
He robbed the Highland farmers
Of cattle, oats, and wheat.

Along the starving farmlands
A coronach they'd cry
The poor and suffering crofters:
Who watched each other die

The mighty giant of Atholl
Lived in a hidden cave,
And a hunter stalked that giant
Swore it would be his grave,

For when each evening darkened
The giant would pour out
A dram of huge proportions
Poured from a monstrous spout

The ogre lay a-sleeping
The hunter quickly stole
His whisky, oats and honey,
And mixed them in a bowl

And when the giant wakened
He guzzled down the drink:
Thus Atholl Brose was born,
And then, quick as a wink.
The hunter slew the Ogre
The land from fear was freed
The chinks in the giant's armour
Were cruelty and greed

O look on your neighbours, people,
Bring solace to their pain
You walk this world a moment
And do not come again

The mighty giant of Atholl
His wickedness is gone;
A sword cut off his villany,
And thus time rumbles on.