Sheena Blackhall Poems

In Memory of Sylvia Plath Hughes

The Black Prince of Paradise brought you to this place,
Where Cromwell's Ironsides were bread and buttered,
...

The Cat o Nine Tails
Stretched on a frame in the bathhouse
Ankles and wrists lashed hard
Rab the cat was sentenced
...

The door remembers
the layers of bottle green paint
the brass-bulled letterbox
the glittering granite steps
...

Great grandfather stood like a stone
As the ship crossed the horizon
To dropp off the world as he knew it
His shovel beard, his barrel chest
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Please don't disturb the crane fly on the window
She is watching a leaf dance solo in autumn's ballet

Bitten by the cold, a grey dog soft as wormwood
...

Have you ever boarded a flight with the dread
Of the passenger next to you snoring his head
Off, or maybe a toddler who's teething & raging
And dribbling, and drooling and loudly rampaging?
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Otzi The Iceman, murdered in 3,500 BC
Shot with an arrow, bludgeoned to death
Had 61 tattoos, like a human tapestry
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To be beautiful is my aesthetic
Though others may call me pathetic
I'll spend what it costs
To have prosthetic busts
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1.Shoe-Case, Auschwitz

Clogs, boots and shoes built to the skies
They stun the mind and glut the eyes
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Three blasts in quick succession in Colombo
Three hundred murdered, wiped away at once
500 injured, families blown apart
...