Of Eurotrash, Unicorns, Valentines (13 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1.Seine

A river, green's
A jade king's blood
To dream beside of
Sunflowers, cyclist thighs, balloons, church bells

a bottle cooling on ice
the soft loaf of the sun drops crumbs of light
transforming ducks from wheeling wings to boats

a plastic cup rolls in a perfect arc
a jumping child claps at the bob bob waves

two lovers lock their edges in a jigsaw


2.Tiger, Tiger

Tiger, Tiger in the heat,
ponder well your choice of meat
Never chew or swallow man
in your jungle frying pan

Though he's in your kitchen venue,
Humankind is off the menu
If you put him in your pot,
Tiger, Tiger, you'll be shot.


3.Euro Trash

Our North Sea coast has fluid, porous borders.
A Spanish yoghurt berths with Flora marg

The shoreline is an easle of oil paints
Where loaded waves, impasto, lather gulls.

Slippage from yachts and quays
A continental drift from Norway, Sweden,
Follow the Viking road,
A gruesome Valhalla of gunge.

Eco-terrorists are breaching our defences
The sea permits no checkpoints, walls, or fences
A tide of Eurotrash slip-slopping in
Muscling in on home-grown Scottish waste.

Bottles from Spain and Denmark made the trip
120 blobs of polystyrene (nationality unknown)
And 12 balloons bob-bobbing with the puffins

5 shoes, not matching, of assorted sizes
their tongues licking the tides
Are surfing a net that's trapped
One rubber duck with grinning yellow beak
One German oil container oozing slick

Somebody's going to have to clear the lot away
Neptune, maybe, arming his crabs with bags.


4.Global City

Skyscrapers....movie-makers.
Motorways.... rainy days
Housing scheme....druggies' dream.
Single mum.... builder's bum
Mobile phone....home alone.
On-line bank....taxi rank
Goths in black....coke and smack.
Teenage gangs....traffic prangs
Begging boom.... civic tomb.
Plastic hips....botax lips
Faceless bosses...local losses.
Caffeine drinks.... world, shrinks
Flying high....My oh my,
sittin pretty.... global city!


5. Tree no 02363:

Tree no 02363 is wearing a green tag
It inhabits a green corridor
Between a rock and a hard place

No-one has christened it, it is a bare tree
A number placed in someone's databank

Hedging a bet between New Age and Old
Between Science and Pagan Rite
Someone has set a horse shoe
Into the crook of its wooden arms
Invoking the healing powers
Skill and intuition wed to luck

A virgin lawn nearby sprouts maidenhair
Waits for a unicorn to make its day.


6. Moving On

We lifted pots and pans from house to van
Families, drawn by the sight of a home, moving,
Watched from summer gardens
Mowers idling.

Minus its couch potatoes
The sofa got an airing
I nursed a soup dish with a dodgy lid.
A dog, three doorways up, barked
Fit to burst.

Its owner, Molly, (whitest sheets in the street)
Gathered her kids around to cheer us off.

The driver gripped the wheel,
Reversing out. Crooked his mouth in a leer.

`That slapper used to like a bit of rough.
Three of us had her once in Linksfern Wood
Took it in turn we did. Pissed as a newt!
She sucked us dry. She couldn't get enough. '

In the wing mirror I watched her as she stood
Receding into the lane, sheets hanging on the line
Bright as the Holy Rood.
Rooted in sunshine with her little brood
Light years away by far from Linksfern Wood


7. Clun Village, Shropshire

The Duke of Norfolk's castle stands askew
Pretending to be Pisa.
Opening Clun's public toilet
Activates a male Welsh choir
Accelerates defecation

An Aylesbury duck
Cuddles its own head
Folding in on itself
A feather coracle

On a dandelion big as a biscuit,
A storm-stead red admiral butterfly
Holds to the topsail

A dancing dog drapes its neck
With the scarf of its own tail
The Isadora Duncan of the kennel.


8. The Hurst, October

On Monday the ivy clung to the wall
A blackbird lit on a bush. It flew off, mute.
A sheep dislocated its jaw
Mechanically chewing. The brown ditch
At its feet like the brew of a bog
I used to go to, slinking off for a bit of peace,
After the peats were cut when the kids were small.
It was a mead of honeybees and sun,
Of trees and firey nettles, the bones of birds.

On Tuesday, another poet used this room I sleep in
I occupy her hollow like a hare in a high pasture
I would not chose her track through nightmare's thickets

I think of the horse at rest out there in the rain.
I willed and willed it to come, with tongue clucks and whispering
It turned its back, like a poem that won't be ordered.
Tonight I'm a melting baby, mouthless, mouthless.


9. My Uncle's Cows

Matilda, heavy uddered, took the lead
Plodding between the violet sprinkled banks
Hoof drumbeats on the road. A docile breed.

Behind her, lesser matrons swished their tails
Their milky breath like kettles on the boil
As tardy as a bucketful of snails
A lapwing ran zigzag across a field

I'd suck a straw and cut myself a switch
In spring the cows were skittish, slow to yield
The farmhouse was a hayrick on the hill

Beside the shed where bantams scratched and clucked
The distant woods were secretive and still

Flossie the sheepdog gave a warning bark
The herd ignored her. Plopped green cowpats down
The hidden moon rehearsed for grown-up dark.


10.A Valentine to Marcus Aurelius (121-80BC)

Who says flesh cannot crave a ghost?
Aurelius, both good and just
Your spirit fans my mind to flame
Though I am clay and you are dust.

Rarer than jade, than dragon's tears
You were a man that all could trust
I'd be the villa to your vine
Though I am clay and you are dust

Some gaze upon your sculptured face
Seeing a cold, imperial bust
I see a forehead to desire
Though I am clay and you are dust

Who thinks that mawkish modern man's
A fit receptacle for lust?
Aurelius, I kiss your feet
Though I am clay and you are dust


11. In the Psychiatric Ward

Who's that in the mirror wearing a stranger's face?
Why does the picture move and come alive?
What is the thing that whispers, 'Jump! Fly! Die!
Why does Admissions buzz, a blocked up hive?

The ward is locked at night. No 'Get well Soon.'
No flowers. No glass. That visitor's the moon.
Leah's an island nobody can reach
Hazel sings nursery rhymes to the cracked wall
Old Martha three beds down's a rocking horse
Judith sees walking phantoms that appall.

The ward is locked at night.
No 'Get well Soon'. No flowers.
No glass. That visitor's the moon.


12. The Unicorn

The unicorn says he will come, but you mustn't tease him
Nor will he stay for long if you say you need him.

No photographs. No footage for the archive
He must have lilies to lie on
A bed of fern and a virgin's breast to sigh on.
And love as wide as Wyoming, as deep as loss
And a road for coming and going
Into the mist, the damp, primeval moss.


13. The Little Nut Tree

I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
But a wall eyed mirror and a deadly stare

The king of Nightmare's brother came to visit me
To show me the path leading to Insanity
I skipped half a life away, I wooed misogyny
And all because of that little nut tree.