English Poems Neptune's Staircase Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Haiku
A lady scoops up
Her Dalmation's poo in a bag
Hangs it in a tree.


The Kenning Family
Mr Kenning is something of a mind-reader
He's a tree-hugger, a book-worm

Mrs Kenning is a fender-bender
Her car was a real bone-shaker
The accident was spine-chilling
But the policeman was a good lie-detector

Luckily, she's also a bean-counter
She was fully insured
She's real eye-candy

The Kenning's son, a rug-rat
Is a show-stopper at Karate
Their daughter is an ankle-biter
A couch-potato

The Kennings live in a sky-scraper
The wind, their neighbour, howls like a tree-snapper


Maladies
Stick insect teenagers are all the rage
With each bone sticking up from the rib cage
An endless battle against food they wage
Poor body image nothing can assuage

Junk food addicted, it's a constant strife
A fatty diet leads to a poorer life,
The silent killers are a fork and knife,
Deaths by diabetes, heart attacks, are rife.

Stress, burn-out, nails poor health upon the cross,
Depression can bring months or years of loss
Suicide spreads wings, wide's an albatross
Recovery's a game of pitch and toss

Soldiers in action oft means widows' weeds
PTSD means mind where memory bleeds
Click click the gun revolves like rosary beads -
And amputees discover growing needs.


Pater Familias
I never thought the father very pleasant-
His word was law.
His family danced attendance on his needs
That much I saw.
His face was stern
Gray eyes and thinning hair
A martinet. Cold, clever, unforgiving
Opinions set

A first class mind. Suicide. Reason unknown
He drove to the hills, took pills, and died alone


The Glen of Weeping
This deep, dark glen is surrounded by Bens
From Rannoch Moor to Argyll's Loch Leven
Buachaille Etive Mor, and the waters of Coe
A slice of Fingal the hero's Heaven

Beinn Fhada, Gearr Aonach and Aonach Dubh,
Loom up, the Three Sisters Mountain Range
Ghosts live in its mists, in its shadows, its dew
The glen is mysterious, eerie, and strange


Glen Brittle/Gleann Bhreatail, Skye
Loch Eynort, birds feed on the mudflats
Sea eagles dive downwards to fish.
You can walk on a great forest circuit,
See the grand Cuillin mountains enrich
The scene. See the otters cavorting!
In the sea, salmon leap with a swish
Whales, gannets, seals puffins enjoying
Skye's delights, ah, what more could you wish?
The Commandos' Monument, Spean Brig
Three bronze figures brave the sky
In a garden near the spot
Where fallen, dead commados lie
May they never be forgot

There's a hip flask on the ground
Saying ‘Have a dram on me'
A comrade in arms has placed
This gesture of empathy

Three bronze figures brave the sky
In a garden near the spot
Where fallen, dead commados lie
May they never be forgot


From a Coach Tour: Views of the West Coast of Scotland (1)
Speak up…this hearing aid has interference
Is it Friday? asks the woman with the straw coloured hair
A stone blind man leans heavy on his friend
Her cataracts make everything seem misty
3 zimmers 4 walking sticks 2 pacemakers
That mad woman! She stripped off on the bus.
The thrush sings beautifully on the hill


The Psychiatrist's Waiting Room
Madame Botezatu has brought her daughter Crtistina
To be assessed. She thinks she is a Therian.
In the waiting room, Cristina miews and pounces
On all fours, purrs and curls in a ball

Mr Albescu has brought his son Florin.
Florin has joined the otherkins, part human,
Part animal. He bares his teeth and growls

The police are there with Gratian Florea,
An illegal immigrant from Transylvania
To be tested for Clinical lycanthropy,
The syndrome in which the patient
Believes he can become a wolf.
He has bitten and scratched other prisoners
During a full moon. He tells the police
His eyes have changed colour
And his teeth have lengthened

The psychiatrist sits in his consulting room
He has curved fingernails, low-set ears
A swinging stride. He lifts his handkerchief
From his suit pocket, and delicately
Wipes the juice from last night's meal
From the sides of his mouth.
The handkerchief is stained blood red

Haiku
I lie in my bed
Rain is knocking on the roof
No admittance here

The horse smells of grass
It breaths in the wind, neighing
Leans over the fence

My cat chases mice
Mice and birds are its playthings
Eating their heads first

The ferret hunts in the snow
Its fangs flashing white
Snip off a furred life

A dowser arrived
The forked twig twitched in his hand
Water's source revealed
White moon floats in shards
On the cupping hands of waves
A dropped mirror, smashed


On the Coach
Two dead Beetles sing to the nearly dead
Sixties hippies in denim, silver foxes
An ever shrinking cohort
Ripe to swell the ravers in the sky