English Poems From There's No Cow On The Ice Poem by Sheena Blackhall

There's no Cow on the Ice
There's no cow on the ice
It's not always the worst scenario

I want to know when the oak falls,
Do her acorns mourn?

How I long to join
The flight of the kingfisher
Reading the runes of the river!

The devil leaves no thumbprints
When he breaks the butterfly's wings
He sends the occasional postcard from his inferno
‘Wish you were here'

In Callander, under the snowline
A phoenix soars from a bookshelf

Following trails of words
Wolves howl, honouring wounds

I pose with my brother
In an old photo
A double negative

When I was a girl,
I walked like a tsarina
Wrapped in the furs of my father's love

An owl flies out of a coal shed
Into the night. Like me,
She travels a minor road less taken.


Elegy in April
Some nights it feels like the moon
Is the prow of the Titanic,
Sliding into blackness

Grief has a bitter taste
Sour as rowans
Sour as unripe grapefruit
Sorrow's a broken crow
Flapping its useless wings

People tell me to cut you adrift
But if I let you slip into oblivion
Half of me vanishes with you
Leaving behind a husk of motherhood


Union Street Beggar
His speech is rusty from disuse
His patter, indecipherable

His wrecked shoes are bunion moulded
Spillages stain his clothes

His mouth is a blitz of teeth
Lost from drugs or blows

His clothes comes from the three times dead
Oxfam rejects, scavenged from wheelie bins

His skin is scarred with eczema
The beggar's stigmata

He is young, with hidden hurts we only guess at
As we walk quickly round this invisible man

Welcome to Paradise
Abandoned building, mould infested dump
Its roof sprouts weeds peeled posters straggled down
Rust water tide marks stain the masonry
A stinking, rat infested scab of town
Nearby sleek oil supply ships berth at bay
Where heron ravaged prozzies hope to prey
On lust to fuel their habit, freezing thighs
On show, they totter on stilettos high
As they are, when a hit supplies their need
For skank, where dark corruptions seethe and breed


Feather on water
I am a feather on water
It bubbles. I bounce like a ballerina
It swirls. I flounce my flamenco fronds
It rises. I am a ski lift ascending
I hold my lines together like a sestina

It drips. I am Fred Astaire
Tap dancing on an old tin roof
I am quite aloof
Holding my partner's hand like Mr Darcy
It cascades. I'm a moody tango
It falls. I'm a pouncing cat
I land on nimble paws
To thunderous applause

I am a feather on water
It languishes. I'm a swan, asleep
I'm in too deep
It dribbles, and I'm a toddler on tottering feet

Water moulds my movement
As a potter cups his clay
It churns. I become Kali
Stamping with fiery eyes
It stills, and I am Ophelia
Lifeless, a no-thing, skimmed over by dragonflies
It flows. I; m a girl's silk slip
Slithering over skin, a lover's surprise
It oozes- I'm a hot slut
Schmoozing to a sultry trombone
I am feather and I am water
The pulse of the river at last has become my own.


Sights on a summer morning
Chaffinch examines the grass for signs of breakfast
Nothing is handed to him on a plate

From the shoulders of the Bens
Plaids of mist slide down
Last night's bonfire, so angry
This morning is wearing a black eye

Beside a locked gate
Sheep stride through a hole in the fence
There's always a way

Shapeless baggy clothes
Over a beautifully crafted woman
Over a beautifully sculpted man
Youth never goes out of fashion

Shrine room candles are budding flames
Like nipples in the cold
Rising from the white wax of the breast

Overnight new hummocks of earth appear
Mole is expanding his empire

Poor daffodil, surrounded by birdsong
Can't even blow her own trumpet
Nobody's perfect

Bee floats triumphantly over the barbed wire
No flies on her

Pills fill the gaps in the walls of Jericho
Lose them, cracks soon appear


Wabi Sabi
Mossy the tree is hogging the sun
Pertwee the pan is singing on the stove
Mmmmm hums the air filter, Wesley

Milly Molly and Mandy
Wear apply blossom well
Sisters in bloom
Little skipper, little dancer
Flash your skirts water girl

Priscilla the i-phone is sulking, nobody's looking at her
She's all about ME ME ME

Wabi sabi, the cracked oak whispers
The wind's nest cradles the breeze

Moon is silent
A hare sleeps in her heart

Who says dandelion's a weed
Punch them, snapdragon!


Tommy and Moira
Tommy was Moira's only love
They fitted together, hand in glove
After they married, they had two boys
A home full of laughter, chatter and toys

Tommy, to keep romance alive
Suggested one evening a week they dance
A babysitter would their sons
While they foxtrotted off to diverting dreams

The babysitter had chestnut hair
And breasts as soft as a French eclaire
Soon she was over every day
Her name was Samantha Fotheringay

One evening Moira retuned from shopping
Weighted with goods her arms near dropping
She went to flop on her marital bed
But Sam & Tommy were there instead

What's to be done? We'll stay. You'll go
Or stay, but accept the status quo
The kids like Sam & this is their house
Moira hung on, an unwelcome mouse


Well of course she cracked with a broken heart
And they carried her half with a mind apart
She lay in a ward and nobody cared
She looked at the moon till she grew grey haired

The years rolled on, Samantha died
Tommy mourned, and I daresay cried
Then needing a partner he crawled through the crack
Of forgiveness and Moira took him back

Tho her life was an apple gnawed to the core
She welcomed him in- an open door
Would you have forgiven him after that?
I'd have squashed him flat as a noxious gnat


Judas
I am the Judas of my tribe
I was offered their land to farm
But walked away. Refused the heavy yoke meant for my back

I till the mind for words. I live in the half light
Midway between the real and the imaginery
Snagged on the barbed wire of fleeting thoughts


At Dhanakosa
Do the names of the dead
Fly off to roost in a neighbour's head?
My name in the census is proof of my existence
Fleetingly, in the place where I was bred


Falling
When I was young
Through judo, I learned how to fall
I do it so well. It's a gift

One day I'll fall
But I won't be able to shift


On Running a Marathon
I have never run a marathon
But I have been bitten
On both legs, in extremis
By feral furious children and survived

I have never run a marathon
Or ridden the winning horse at Aintree
But I can boil an egg and whip up coffee

I have never run a marathon
But I have a garden large enough
To home three elephants
As well as dandelions and some plants


Isn't That Something
Isn't that something?
When you're old,
It's the simple things that matter
A grand child's touch
An omelette on a platter


Crow & Grapes
Will the crow I fed with grapes
Remember me?
I remember him
He had the face of Tiberius
The greed of the Caesar Nero
Towards others
He was Caligula
His compassion was zero


Sleeping with Worries
Have you tried sleeping with worries?
Have you noticed they hog the bed?
Like demolition men
They destroy your peace
The sheep you try to count
Have lost their fleece


Things I Enjoy
The stillness of an empty church
A lone horse in a meadow
The paw of a paused tiger
A puppet's shadow

Cool linen on hot skin
A dancing dragon kite
Wet umbrellas, streetlit geese in flight

The Hollywood evening dress of magpies
A purring cat
Brueghel's Peasant wedding
A Carmen Miranda hat


Overheard at a Stirling bus stop
‘ye widnae catch me in Balquhidder. Naethin tae see in the sticks'
Ah…but what about
Mute swan, robin, house sparrow, dipper
Raven, dunnock, siskins, sandpiper
Peregrine falcon, deer, otter
Red squirrel chiff chaff oyster catcher
Nuthatch, song thrush, heron & goosander
Golden eye, buzzard, nightingale and badger
Pipistrelle bats that fly by night
Green finch mountain hare woodmouse twite
Golden eagle where the bright clouds sail
Woodcock, lizard with bright green tail
Magpie snow bunting Canada goose
Fox with the pheasant plays fast and loose
Great spotted woodpecker song thrush jay
Wood pigeon calling at the end of day
Blackbird mallard cuckoo wren
Tawny owl barn owl hunting in the glen
Tits swifts finches, swooping through the hollows
Dance in the air with crows and swallows
Wagtails, redpolls, small goldcrests
Redwings flash by house martin's neats
Larches, cherry trees, pine trees, firs
Oaks where bird life rests and whirrs
Such a collieshangie in the woods and skies
Nothing in Balquhidder? Lies, damned lies!


In the Kitchen
In the kitchen, I watch a cook
Helping an onion out of her russet coat
Tears of condensation tremble on a knife edge
A girl sings to a pan as it simmers and spits


Grandmother's heirlooms
Grandmother's heirlooms
One signet ring
One plaid brooch
Laughter and ease
Love glimpsed through
The twin clouds of cataracts



Sounds near Loch Voile
A harem of ewes
Delicately crop the grass
Jaws savouring each crunch
Like guests in a gallery sampling canopes

Two ducks squawk in flight
Their wings attuned to the wind
In their inner bellows
‘F…' says the cook in the kitchen
To his disobliging cooker

And where is the swift red squirrel in all this expanse of day?
A no-show…a furry void

A blackbird sings a paeon to the sun
Through the larch's boughs
Waves gossip on the loch
Whispering watery secrets to the swimmers

A bumble bee weighed down with pollen
Buzzes a sound as sweet as syllabub

Asmall plane zips through a cloud
A sound like tearing silk
Traffic punches a hole in a Trosachs idyll
A bum note queering the pitch of a sympathy


Pixie the Bookshop Cat
Pixie, Pixie gliding light
Past the bookshelves left and right
Such intelligence! Such grace!
Presiding spirit of that place
Three hens that cackle outside, bow
Bend down their peckers as her prow
Of queenly fur, stalks past their pen
While frogs croak out a benison

Her ears are conical and sharp
Her purr like an ark angel's harp
As she swerves n majestic paws
Do cats go through the menopause?
Is that why, when I try to stroke
Her off she goes, a puff of smoke

This cat is mystical and wise
With ancient Egypt in her eyes
When she ascends her throne of books
Such purrings, such imperious looks!