English Poems Fromgasmask Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Missing: inspired by George Segal's plaster casts ‘Bus Riders'
In January, the 6.30am bus
Was full each Friday, early morning shift

Then one was missing, elderly, South African,
With a laugh like bubbling chocolate
Over the months grown stiffer, but always smiling

In February, two more absentees
Polish/Russian, Lithuanian?
(we guessed that they were Eastern European)
With Brexit, there might be more empty spaces

In March, the odd one wasn't standing waiting
Harmless, he talked to shadows, dressed in kilts
Looked like a Jacobite, in lycra leggings
Not seen on the street: safe in a ward?

Each month or so another disappearance
Spirited off: they are the nameless missing
The blanks were quickly filled by new arrivals



Tillypronie's Bunny
A version of the logo of Hugh Hefner's magazine, a 300foot bunnywith ears and bow tie, stamped on Tillypronie's braes, was said to be seen from outer space.

Philip Astor ordered the thing to be done
And Sandy McConnachie did it
Cocking a snoot at feminists
Who'd rather preferred he hid it

A fire in the hills has scorched its ears
Its bow tie's fried and frizzled
Unlike Hugh Hefner'swaitresses
Who served up drinks and sizzled


The Gas Mask in the Glory Hole
I learned that 38 million gas masks
Had been handed out, superfluous to requirements

A baby boomer, I missed the war by two years
Too young to know what rationing was about

The gas mask in the glory hole looked like a Martian
A creature from space, or a nightmare
Bug eyes set in stinking black rubber

In the back lane, little boys sang a song
Left over from wartime.
I thought they meant the rubber kind for bouncing

Hitler, he only had one ball,
Goering, he had two but they were small,
Himmler had something sim'ler,
But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all.

Beside the gas mask, a first aid dressing box
Containing the following: manual on first aid,
Sterilized dressings, packets of cotton wool,
Alcoholic solution of iodine,
Smelling salts, eye drops, splints,
Adhesive plaster, tourniquet, roller and triangular bandages,
Safety pins and an electric torch
For a horror that never happened

The granite walls of my home
Were strafed with shrapnel
As if a horrid beast had raiked its claws along the stone

The glory hole held father's gun and golf clubs
His fishing rod and a solid metal safe
With important family papers,
And several thousand pounds
Against a run on the bank

My father left nothing to chance
The gas mask outlived him
Shrivelling with the decades
Unburied terror



Ticking Bomb
A virus is a ticking bomb
A lottery
A game of Russian Roulette

When typhoid came to my city
I was one of the chosen
The only one in the family
It struck down

Quarantined for weeks in the fever hospital
I learned how panic spread like a dark stain
Businesses crumbled
Trust and mercy withered on the bough

My father lost his job…one repercussion
The milkman left our milk on the bottom step
At school they burned my paintings, drawings, books

Now, who would want to wear corona's crown?