3 English Poems From Sizzons Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Rule Britannia: DSS and Punters share a Hotel
Chaotic meets well ordered
Rough sleeper who recently peered from his bag
Coping/not coping,
One works, one's on the blag

In the lift, they meet
Interface like sandpaper
Scraping cheek by jowl
Rubbing each other up the wrong way
Say, what's fair, what's foul?


John Milton 1608-1674
His first wife Mary, a bride of just sixteen
Left him three daughters, died in childbirth

Katherine, his second, fared no better
Died in childbed too, a doomed begetter

His third wife, childless Elizabeth,
Outlived him, a happier outcome

Milton thought it gross to marry a widow
Nothing but a virgin would do for him
This man his fellow students called ‘The Lady'
His light brown hair cascading to his shoulders

He considered education wasted on women,
An inferior sex. Ironically, his issue
Were all of the female breed.
Paradise Lost, indeed.


Dean Swift
Jonathon Swift was born in Dublin
Jonathon Swift was very odd
Jonathon Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels
Now he's underneath the sod