32 English Poems From The Cloud Collector Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1. Loch Villanelle
Across the loch two curlew keen and wheel
One ripple breeds another….endless link
A moment’s mist….what’s real becomes unreal

I hear the fledglings chirping as I steal
Down, where deer at gloaming stoop to drink
There shadows show the swish of a dark eel

Upon a stone, a robin with her meal
Of worms, alights. Two ducklings preen and prink
Here footsore hares creep down, to rest and heal

A brown moth’s open wings….you almost feel
The sun warm on its back. There, at the brink
Of leaves which part, a rainbow to reveal

For memory’s an ever-filling creel
Treasure your time. It’s later than you think
Death’s not the sort to compromise or deal

When Darkness brings its shadows to conceal
The loch, seen only by the moon’s thin chink
Of light, the fox will pounce on a small squeal
The midnight hours. Owls dance the Devil’s reel.


2. Desire
Be careful what you wish for, the Chinese say
A vain & trendy teenage Mary Quant
I desired thigh-high suede boots
Russet-coloured as randy vibrant foxes

They stained my feet in the rain
A red stigmata. The dye took weeks to shift


3. A Descendent of Bruce’s Spider
A descendent of Bruce’s spider has ambitions
She dreams of a web, strong as prehensile steel
In an oak wood, on the rim of myth and fable

Small, slight, Machiavellian in mind-set
She has a courtier’s duplicity, a perfect political animal
She tilts her queer dark face towards her victim
Smiles, withdraws, then pounces
Nothing stands in her way


4. Ambivalence
The last seat in the theatre, in the Gods
Pot plants parked in a day centre
Ambivalence
A cut price hand of bananas
Ambivalence
A locked door
Ambivalence
All dentists great and small
Ambivalence
Free Range Ostrich farming
Ambivalence


5.Walk on a summer’s Day (200 steps)
The larch dangles its knots of nut-brown seeds
In slatted tangles of green…an Elf King’s dreadlocks

Small jade fly, an exquisite winged jewel
Tiptoes on a poppy’s blousy petals
A soup of nettles simmers in the heat

A streamlet gurgles down its own bright throat
Flanked by ferns from Nature’s Book of Kells

A carillon of bluebells melts like cones
The arch above a shepherd’s flowery cromack

New birches huddle…girls at their first dance
Not bold enough to step out from the shadows

Over the back-drop of a mud-brown puddle
Butterflies flirt outrageously together
White actors in a Japanese Noh play

An invisible droning plane above the glen
Creates a mackerel sky of poisoned white
Beyond the ken of buttercup or trout

Sun’s the golden halo of an angel
Spreading his fallen feathers on the loch


6.The Mothers
At the children’s roll call of the mothers
Sarah’s mum was a brain-box
All the smarties were there
Even the blue ones
Her daddy shot himself

Daisy’s mum kept gin in the bread bin
Stank of Gauloise and garlic
Caught ‘the bad trouble’ on holiday
From a Spanish waiter
The divorce was protracted and messy

‘We don’t like the look of YOURS’
They said to me,
As if their mums were perfect


7.The Dead Martian’s Last Recorded Message
Crepuscular bubbles flottered
In the interpentecostalisms of the moon

We were hydrosyphilitic from angsters
As we zingzonked and splotterboomed
Past a crinklesag of comets

Kangaloozing off the asterphiliostes
We kerflumped into the slimpslump
Where our fuhrerschpeeler dismetrolled
Our wigglwwiffles

By now I was hyperphilactic with brittles
How I yearnared for my kissplodger!

I hykeryanked my oxterfluffs to makkerlift
Ah: a quaffle of zunkides with a spunklit of aspertoys!

Our vittlebloomph was plummetaring
No battsquirts to oompher

I blinkercommed the unirhocerous
Zoybiddens! I skelloched.
Noddlezink! Widderzunk! Clickertins!

My clunk and Vimpter syxsie
Dispopulated the cruxxies!

My crannikoots snapperated-
My timmerwirms unpixillated
Eurunka! Finnikins! Wump!


8.Poem Inspired by a Gaelic Topography of Balquhidder Parish
Field of the land producing thatch
Shieling of grinding wheat
Burn beside the dun coloured dell
Burn of the mournful bleat

Burn of the black waterfall
Burn of the windy space
Burn of the rock where MacRenish lived
A robber of that place

Burn of the hawthorn tree
Trough of the grey hound’s peak
Burn of the house of the ravine
Knoll of the men of peace

Pass of the dell of arrows
The dell of hides and skins
The hamlet of the hollow
Hill of the moaning winds

The coffer of the hand mill
The stone of the slender grass
Pass of the little bramble bush
Brae where the corpses pass

The glen suited for cattle
The hollow of the bog
The clachan of the stepping stones
Of Linn and fallen log

The fairy knoll of battles
The mountains of the mine
The black peak of the badgers
The ben of the creeping pine


9.The Cod’s Nightmare
In dreams in the depths of the ocean
Come whispers from cod of the past
‘We were lifted aloft in a trawler
Our tail-fins were nailed to the mast.

We shudder to think of our loved ones
All battered and slapped in a tub
Then flung in the fires of a fryer
And clapped on a paper, as grub

Little codlings, when nude Aphrodite
Rises up in her shell from the sea
With the hairs on her legs full of bubbles
And her breasts jiggling so merrily

It isn’t your scales she’s admiring
Your fins, or your blubbery lips
She’s imagining you on a platter
With vinegar, sauce, and some chips


10. Rain Bombs
The bees are under cover.
Rain drops bomb them so fiercely
They could easily drown or be damaged

Outside, their landlady is concocting bee treats
Fragrant flowers, to lessen their travel times

To produce a pound of honey,
They may travel 55,000 miles
They may visit over two million flowers

To produce an ounce of honey,
Bees may travel 1600 round trips
Of 6 miles per trip

A spokesman bee for the rare black British type
(Thought to have been wiped out by Spanish flu in 1919)
Said, from her hive in Northumberland

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Before buzzing off
To complete her busy work schedule



11.The Cloud Collector: For Jessica, aged 4

She whirls like a dervish,
Arms raised to embrace the sun

She brings me an invisible cloud
Staggering under the pretend
Weight of Nothingness

Four years old, she lives in
The Land of Childhood
The gap between Real and Imagined

The cloud is precious.
I must not let it drop


12.Dying Footfalls
Looking through Memory’s portal,
La Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth,
Slips through my Orphic fingers.
Nothing remains but dust and dying footfalls

Crossing the threshold from night to dawn
I am greeted by lilac,
As out of the blue a house martin wheels a welcome


13.Incubus
There is a wildness inside me, a sort of creature
Nothing can kill this incubus
Though days may drag me off to their necessary happenings

The incubus sits in its niche, an honoured resident
Its amber eyes beyond the strobe of censure

Under the hood, beneath the radar
Its little hooves are drumming away merrily
It is going to kick up Hell

When darkness comes, its wild eyes are shining
One day it may revolt, push Reason,
And me with it, down the river.


14.The Penguin
The penguin is a silly bird
Its wings it cannot use
It shuffles here, it shuffles there
On its wrong-fitting shoes

Its belly lies upon its feet
It always looks so glum
And so would you
If all your life you had a frozen bum


15.Sheep Dreams
A sheep is like a pillow
That stuffs itself with grass
It cannot count itself to sleep
‘Cause it can’t count, alas!


17.The Poem Waiting on Platform 3
It may be begin with silence
Or not
It may be about adversity
Or not
It may be circular in form
With gaps and line breaks
Allowing thoughts to breathe and let in light
Or not

Passengers may enter the verses
They may adhere to social norms
Obey life’s rules
Or not

It has just been announced
That the poem arriving on platform 3
Is aboard the Flying Scotsman.
The onward journey may take 10 minutes
Or not

Passengers step on:
Here is a man, struggling with a clarsach
A black cat has just sneaked in,
Fleeing from a rhododendron bush in the siding

Words are what burned his mistress
Many kittenish moons ago

The poem is beginning to enjoy itself
It does not get many excursions

A terrorist steps on
And an advert for Keillor’s marmalade

The poem perks up its ears like a dog.
It wags it tail
Or not


18.A Jar of Mixed Metaphors
My grandfather’s frown was a dark ribbon of bitumen
At such times nobody coveted his company
He was delightful as a squashed mouse.

His charity was workhouse porridge
Scraped from the pot’s bottom
His mood was yellow
Sour as ageing toenails

But when he smiled (which was rarely)
The sky was a blue table of feathers
His eyes lit up, two John Clare cornflowers

Hallelujah! he sang, perfectly in tune
A tall black streak of holy liquorice


19.The Temple Cat
The temple cat, stick thin,
Lifts up the begging bowl of his meow
He is seeking the alms of love
Tipping an ear to the side for a soft stroke

His rib bones are a toast rack
His paw steps rickety and wheezy

Mindful of moving
He has perfected the art of Ageing


20.Another Bee Poem
At a hotel in Edinbro
That’s stinting with its honey
But lavish with its prices
All to squeeze its patrons’ money

The toast was spread so thinly
That a punter sighed to me
‘We must commend the manager
I see he keeps a bee’.


21.Poet as Warthog
A grunting warthog, bristle backed, alert
I stand with my tail twitching
Primed to root out truffles
Of words, the succulence of poetry


22.Childhood: Gingerbread & Honey
The fizz of gingerbread on thirsty lips
Days entered my heart like drips of honey
Gean trees dangled luscious crimson earrings

Old trees whispered secrets, ached for rain
Unfettered birds spread wings wide to the clouds

A hare’s ears twisted sideways into the wind
A boulder rose from a pool like a great altar
My bare footprints melted into mud
Ringed by an anklet of forget-me-nots

The tin tack eye of a salmon, held my stare
Skies crackled electric storms on high

Above the silver mine two falcons wheeled
The village clock clanged out the tinny hours
Two doors away a living corpse lay dying

Tourists hopped like magpies seeking trinkets
I was a trout, a hare, a hatching toad
I emptied myself from house to the high hills

The moon did not exist beyond the village
On a hot pony’s sides the black flies sizzled
At night my mouse ears listened to the owl

Threadbare mists wove wreaths of widow’s weeds
A Glastonbury of minnows thronged the shallows
This was my wall-less roof-less summer home

A seethe of midges danced amongst the trees
I lay on springy heather counting clouds
And chipped my name into a crag’s sharp,
In this, each summer’s loved, Elysian place

23.The Alzheimer Man
My words are like children
They sometimes go out to play.
I expect they’ll come back
When they’re ready,
The Alzheimer man said.

24.Meditation No 3
Silence settled, soothing as a bee-murmurs
Yellow candles glimmered in the stillness
The scent of honeysuckle filled the shrine

Above the roof, a Catherine wheel of swifts
The loch was shimmering with a shoal of waves
Continents of clouds merged in the sky

Like debutantes, out for a single season
The beech tree’s leaves were dressed in silken green

25.Filling the Gap
An oak held out its arms to me
Today, in a woody welcome

It’s neighbour of 50 years
Lay felled in last winter’s storm.

For a while to please it,
I was a stand-in tree
Filling the gap that lets the wind in, now


26.The Granite City
Out of Rubislaw Quarry came
Statues, pavements, plinths and setts
Fountains and Sarcophagi
Drinking troughs for horse or pets

Bank, museum, pubs and kerbs
Facings, floorings, columns too
Angels, shops, a bridge to cross
The mighty Thames at Waterloo

Roads and gravel, tenement flats
Drum and Crathes, castles sweet
Parliament in London Town
Lighthouse, prison, Union Street

Docks and quays both far and near
Statues, flashing granite’s fire
Citadel and gallery
Marischal College, soaring spire

Caryatids and anchors fouled
Celtic crosses, Georgian homes
Theatre and Infirmary
Fashioned, all by granite stone

Church and general, king and kirk
Cowdray lion to mark the war
Avenues and Terraces
Memorial stones wreathed round with haar
Hammer, chisel, grit and pick
Long years of retirement lost
Hard the work for wages won
Quarryman’s lung, the human cost

27.A Poem from the Quotes of Oscar Wilde
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Always forgive your enemies;
Nothing annoys them so much.

To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all.
We are all in the gutter,
But some of us are looking at the stars.
With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon,
Who could not be happy?
Who, being loved, is poor?

Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
Their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Nowadays people know the price of everything
And the value of nothing.

I am not young enough to know everything.
Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
Youth is wasted on the young
Children begin by loving their parents;
As they grow older they judge them;
Sometimes they forgive them

Death must be so beautiful.
To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head,
And listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.
To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword

28.Sir George Reresby Sitwell (1860-1943)
Sir George R. Sitwell wrote one year, The History of the Fork,
Along with Lepers’ Squints and many another curious work

His white cows all were painted, with Chinese Willow scenes
A bovine gallery on the hoof, embodying his dreams

He made a curious toothbrush, that when used played Annie Laurie
And just for killing wasps, a pistol, honed to blast its quarry

From condensed milk he fashioned knives, (another of his capers)
And paid his offspring’s Eton fees in piglets and potaters

He lived upon roast chicken, for his diet it was novel
He always dressed for dinner, even in the poorest hovel

A psychic pig stayed in his house, (his wife’s beloved friend)
And a piece of hangman’s rope was dangled from the lord’s bed-end


29. Francis Galton (1822-1911)
Galton, an infant prodigy,
Mastered the alphabet by two
Conquered Latin at four years old,
The man with the supersized IQ

He shaved his patients’ heads in blood
Designed himself a cooling hat
That rose, when he squeezed a rubber bulb
Lifting the lid like a magic mat

He shot giraffes in Africa
He caught the clap from rumpy-pumpy
Fashioned floats from antelope skin
Chewed lime & treacle to stave off scurvy

He made himself submarine specs to read
But water turned each page to pap
And several books he wrote were such
Best used for blocking a draughty gap

He penned Arithmetic by Smell
Tried brewing tea by calculation
Claimed that Aberdonians were
The ugliest women throughout the nation
(And this, he averred, was a proven fact
Based upon measured observation! ! !)

He carried a large clay brick each day
So he could peer above any crowd
But he did discover fingerprints
And so such foibles must be allowed.


30.Reverend William Buckland (1784-1856)
Buckland was a vicar’s son
His taste in food was queer
He dined upon stray guinea pigs
And ghastly things as drear
He polished off a crocodile
A hedgehog, mole, a bear
A puppy and a bluebottle
Rhinocerous, and hare

Roast ostrich, mice on buttered toast
Were found upon his table
(And it was made of fossils’ poo
Hewn from a Stone Age cradle)

He ate the Sun King’s embalmed heart
(So Grim t’would fright the Gorgon)
But still averred that monkey
Far surpassed the Royal organ

His offspring Frank ate Jumbo’s trunk.
Grilled panther from the zoo
A roasted parrot, leporine
And a boiled kangaroo

So when you hear of rarities
In some outré food bar
Refer them to Bill Buckland’s tastes
The oddest fare by far

31.Shakespeare
He wrote his sonnets when plague stopped his plays
From being acted out as thousands died
The bard of Stratford, famed in Raleigh’s days
When teenage, married with an older bride

After his death, the great man’s will was read
(Posterity received each word and thought)
He left his widow Ann his next best bed
That was the top and tail of all she got

On Google now, two million pages tell
Of Shakespeare’s life, his looks and acting troop
Two plays in Klingon have translated well
From his collected works, illustrious book

He wins the starring role as wit and sage
Through countless decades on the World’s stage


32.Nepalese Survivor
Kimtang village is off the beaten track
In this pure land where people are dirt poor

The country is achingly beautiful
Mists drift from sheer-drop waterfalls
Buddhist prayer wheels spin in the crystal air

The Himalayan Mountains are dragons’ teeth
White fangs rooted in green
Fields climb like steps up their steep amphitheatre

The earthquake shook Nepal to its foundation
Toppling homes like toys in a temper tantrum

Now, temples like concertinas creak at crazy angles
Homes are strewn like straw across the roads

Mouth-masked helpers dish out tents and rice packs
The stench of death crawls up from funeral pyres

Where will the poor ones live?
What will become of them when the press move on,
With the monsoon rains so near and corpses leaking?

The rhododendron bushes continue to bloom
The tourists jet away to their safe horizons

In the midst of this sits Mr Funchu Tamang
One hundred and one years old,
Born when the Ghurkhas marched to the poppy war
Twenty three when slaves were banned in his country
Six kings have come and gone
Like ghosts of Sherpas, under his frugal watch

Dressed in a Western T-shirt, bone-tired-weary
He sits in his life’s ruins, facing foreign cameras,
Whilst Western coffers empty their loose change.