Dimitri: English Poems Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Bearsden Shark
Walking the dog by a Glasgow burn
What did Stan Wood find?

It wasn't a beer tin
A shrivelled up condom,

A copy of the Glasgow Herald
The used syringe of a junkie


It wasn't a dumped fridge
An Asda Receipt
A coil of doggie poo

But a Bearsden shark

Not a high-flying banker
A low-life moneylender

It was a 330 million year old shark
With a tooth-fin spine behind its head
A new species of fish,
Named Akmonistion Zangerli,
Romans bathed in Bearsden
Wealthy Glasgow businessmen live there now
A limited species

In Kilmardinny Loch and Nature Reserve
Gruffalos abound, and golfers find it a natural habitat.

The shark, however, is the star of the whole shebang
Lording it in the Hunterian Museum
Away from the eateries and crannies
Of Scottish entrepreneurs
Thankfully, it is dead

The Dandy Lion
The Dandy Lion wallops his tail
Is he Art, or cultural vomit?
Is he Disney bling? A despicable thing?
A visual anal deposit?

Like a pot of paint in the public's face,
Or Tracey Emin's bed
Or Marcel Duchamp's fountain
Art's in the Beholder's head


Some People Say

Some people say
An ex-husband's dog dirt on a shoe
A stale ham sandwich
A cough in Skye in October

A rusty wheelbarrow
Lilac mince
A cat stringed fiddle
A foxglove stuffed with earwigs
The Kalahari desert in a drought
An occasional nightmare
The crack in a cement pool
A soggy croissant
A Ziggy stardust cigarette butt
While an ex-wife is…..