Of Keening, Pierrepoint, Magpies (29 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1. Keening

The invention of keening
Is Irish, devised by Brigit
The daughter of Dagda

For the sin of spying, her son,
Ruadan NacBreas, was killed
By the blacksmith Goibniu

Seeing her womb-seed speare
The first keening ever in Ireland

All bean-sidhe thereafter
Would keen, when mourning the dead
Not just a wail, a lament
As thrilling as pibroch, voiced
For the absent soul
(If the soul is present the Hounds of Hell may rend it)

No soul-respecting wake
Is performed without a keening
Professional grief, cathartic's an excised tumour


2.Pierrepoint's Place

The hand that hooded the condemned,
That adjusted the noose as deftly as knotting a tie
Signed autographs on postcards of his pub
To punters, over a slice of ploughman's pie.

My father, off on business, bagged this trophy.
Pierrepont, the hangman, was affable, he said,
Exuded bonhomie. His place was spotless.
You could see your face in his boots.

Death's butler, he carried the poisoned chalice,
Never spilled a drop. So skilled, he brought a lump
To the felon's throat. Who can gauge the roots
Of such a man, seeded in human quicksand?

His autograph's survived for fifty years,
Whereas postcards from Lossie or Butlin's
Signed with love and kisses from Ian & Nan
Were burned with the dripping
Two days after reading


3. No.7

The collie nipping her hooves, No.7
Followed the Milky Way to the upland byre.
'Home Glen' sent the sheepdog barking back to her bowl
In the warm house, her tenancy assured.

The herd, too,
Knew its place.
One by one each milker stepped
Into the stall, the chain, up to the filled trough

Even their dung would feed the hungry fields.
Sliced turnip, routine, straw, kept No 7 biddable.
A born yielder she neither kicked nor bit
Descendent of a Frisian Flemish line, even her hooves
Would productively turn to glue, her sides to meat.

The six-pronged star on her brow was milky as Venus
Her nose was a smooth stone ending up in the blue
Wet pond of her constantly chewing mouth
Crossed with Wastie's bull. Her urgent bridegroom
Covered and served her fast one Sunday morning.
Business-like, he gave her a cargo of calf.

At the birth she stood in the darkening stall and bellowed
Fell to her knees, howled woman-like to the moon
Her master's hand inside her, a puppeteer
Making her great flanks shudder.

Down came a tangled slither.
Jelly and splash and plop, bellied into the straw.

The farmer rubbed his precious new-born lively, whipping
The phlegm from its mouth with wisps of straw.
It fidgeted in its coat, a too-tight fit, all
Knees and knubble and wobble.

After the labour, No 7's wages.
Warm mash, a splash of whisky, a brisk shake down.
An earned bonus. Two sucklings later, he pulled the calf away.


4. Magpie

Out of a frosty sky
Magpie drops
Like mercury in a glass


5.The Seven Chakras: Kundalini Rising

Two serpents sleep coiled up in their red roots
Lam Lam the yogi chants. Slowly they stir
Like weary houris climbing a steep stair
Up to an orange lotus. Vam he says.

The rising serpents rest
A crowd collects, like geckos to a glass
To this hiatus in normality.
His black mud-matted beard,
Dribbles over the rib-cage of his chest
The twisting vipers reach a yellow fire
The belly of the place, as Ram he cries

The creatures travel on to airy green
Yam rising upward from his hollow heart
Causing the snakes to pleat like virgins' braids.

Untamed, two rutting pigs, hairy and black
Topple the frangipani from a vender's cart
Brown pipe in lap, he squats in the hot dust
Hum he intones. The serpents writhe to reach
Up to a higher zone of azure blue
His third eye turns to violet time. Near done,
Om they've attained the thousand petalled crown
Beyond, this Kundalini enters Aum
The serpent power that makes a flame, a sun.


6. Body Language

While studying postural echo
By a portrait composed by El Greco
I drew myself tall as the man on the wall
Then fell over. I'm human...no gecko


7.On Brigid's Day

On Brigid's Day,
At the time of the ice moon, in the mud month,
'Crazy He Calls Me' closed at the Walter Kerr Theatre,
NYC Swiss males vetoed voting rights for woman.

On Brigid's Day,
At the time of the ice moon, in the mud month,
Chinese Empress Tzu-Hsi forbade
The binding up of womens' feet.
NY Giants and Chic White Sox
Played exhibition basketball in Egypt

On Brigid's Day,
At the time of the ice moon, in the mud month,
Dmitri Shostakovitch was named professor
At Leningrad's conservatory.
A meteorite fell with a thump in Albuquerque.

On Brigid's Day,
At the time o the ice moon, in the mud month
Van Dikes broke the world butterfly record
Bricklayers won the right to an 8 hour day
A crocus spear- head knubbled through the dew.
An earwig crawled from a Kildare corn dolly
Over a book by Kafka in Padhraig's shed

On Brigid's day, as she, all- shining, walked
Out from the clootie tree behind the well
Leaving the Cailleach twisting in its thorns.


8.Yuletide

The Guy Fawkes' fire shrinks to a festive wick
November. Jingle Bells ring in each store
Yuletide arrives so slowly, goes so quick

Those envelopes to write, those stamps to stick
For folks you seldom meet with anymore!
Yuletide arrives so slowly goes so quick

Grandma will guzzle trifles till she's sick
While mothers slave from Cheam to Bangalore
Yuletide arrives so slowly, goes so quick

Why can't men watch one programme? Must they flick
Through every channel, calling each a bore?
Yuletide arrives so slowly, goes so quick

There's veg to peel, there's pudding spoons to lick
The cat eyes up the turkey from the floor
Yuletide arrives so slowly, goes so quick

It's here! The Man in Red climbs down the brick
Chimney with goods and chattels by the score
Children awake, thrilled by the ancient trick
Adverts on TV mushroom fast and thick
Yuletide arrives so quickly, goes so quick


9. February on a Moor

See the sheep skull on the knoll
Heather bells around it toll
Lord look kindly on its soul
Dance, the birds around it

Icicles drip in the bowl
Of a burn as black as coal
Withered hazel, bent and droll
Stands where snow has crowned it

Suddenly a whirring shoal
Of birds fly up where walkers stroll
Winter's stripped each nest, it stole
Bird's shelter, to confound it

Blighted oak, like a Maypole
Beside a grave, seems to cajole
Spring, to arise and make it whole
With growthy roots to ground it

Now is the season of the mole
Sere Winter's blasts are ill to thole
Each shivering hare, each shuddering vole
Wraps tight its coat around it


10. L'Image

Morning of grey skies on a wet slate roof
Four seagulls squawk over a breakfast of crumb
A sparrow sits on the fence, last link in the food-chain
A magpie steals a chip from a wasted beggar


11.The litmus-paper poem: in Praise of Andre Breton

Mandolin moments gralloch in the cheese press
David is tumbling down from the nimbus of
Fra Angelico's ear
Was there ever a bramble better set in a ring for an
Archbishop's mitre?


12.Kitty

There was a young tiger called Kitty
Whose jokes, though unheard, were quite witty
She travelled first class, through no shortage of brass
But she emptied each train intercity


13. March of the Pylons

The pylons stride like giant metal men
Bestriding acres, pointing to the stars
Transmitting their electrical hosannas
Their talk's a hiss, a babble of electrons
More powerful than the ziggurat of Ur
Their lay lines make electrical agendas
A spider's web of slender humming cords
Slung over deserts, prairies and savannahs


14. Climate Change

Skyscrapers play house to herring shoals
A line of traffic's submerged in the bay
Over a parking lot a black tide rolls

Live lobsters crawl on a drowned waiter's tray
Cocktail glasses fill with melting ice
Eels have eaten bare a take-away

Climate change becomes a loaded dice
A gamble with the odds against a win
For every asset squandered, there's a price

This city's citizens are Citroens
Fathoms monitor its ghostly banks
Inhabitants are stingrays and dolphins
Cars fill the garage forecourt, rusting tanks
No oil will fill again. They've done their worst
Drowned I.D. cards, a muster-roll of blanks


15. Secrets

Half a pound of sugary sweet
Secrets made for keeping
Uncle comes to Melanie's room
When her mum is sleeping

Eyes like daisies, curls of gold
Every night's a hell
Everyone will know she is bad
If she dares to tell

Melanie she shuts her eyes
When the camera's watching
Teddy's down beside the bed
With the dirty washing
Pray to sofa, whimper to stars
Nobody is caring
Still he threatens in her ears
Secrets aren't for sharing.


16.The Industrial Rehab Zone

Welcome to the Industrial Rehab zone
Disabled robots, suffering metal fatigue
Or the tremors of virtual meltdown
Are here to be reprogrammed, reassembled

Workers will tighten their brass necks with a wrench
The thoughts of robots are clock-tick
Cog-clunk, cannon-crack
Hollow's a twin-bore after the cloth's been in
At night they dream of pistons,
Mechanical mayhem. They are in the groove
They have you in their sights.

17. Thirteen Uses for a Tortoise Shell

1.a template for an armadillo's igloo
2.a traffic calmer on a Bangkok highway
3.a bit part in a silent movie plot
4.a mould for a yeti's hand grenade
5.a muse for a turtle harbouring poetic proclivities
6.a mince pie cover pretending to be an ornament
7.a moving mine of potential combs and hair grips
8.a pet for an OAP in a high rise flat
9.a discus for training hound dogs to retrieve
10..a punch bowl for creme de menthe with parsley trimmings
11.a footbath for Oliver Cromwell's feet
12.a hedgehog pied a terre
13.a hard hat for a coconut collector.


18.Tenements Touting their Wares

People are hung out to dry,
In the mouths of back street gossips
It may horrify passers-by to know
That in tenements virgins are mounted, unmounted
Nightly. Peepholes and boltholes
Are witnesses to this. Tenants, go lightly.
While an avalanche of starlings
Fly off to lasso a cloud
Tongues prattle and tut

The girl in the basement's a slut
Mr O'Bryan's a paedo who drools in his sleep
McGowan from west of the town
Had abnormal relations with sheep

The hairline crack in the pavement
Deepens where bluebottles buzz
Meanwhile, the bald grow balder
Debts grow horns and tails. Junk mail
Sprouts like ivy along the hall
Here's humanity, warts and all
Huffing and bluffing and toiling at jobs
Where for every ten who succeed
There's fifty fail.

Here's Donovan, back from the bar
He's not the man to encounter
He'd break your body like bread,
A bloody miracle. He'll make you pay
Spitting out teeth like change.
There's his fancy woman from two
Doors down, crimson fingertips,
Hips like hyacinth bulbs, speech
Like the news at ten. His wife's a druggie
Cold turkey for tea again.
He takes his women like some men
Shove on shoes. Oh he's a brute all right
But some girls court a bruise
Rough wooing. Well, anyway
They never tell. He's one third lover
Two thirds sex and spite
For many, this is the place
For the final doch-an-dorris
A back street waiting room
For the heavenly chorus


19.Sebastian

Sebastian is a cat of erudition
He reads the Sunday papers, end to end
He'll talk on rubric cubes and nuclear fission
And stocks and shares. He sends cats round the bend
`Sebastian! ' they yowl 'You should instead
Have thoughts of cream and kippers in your head! '

Sebastian gives a yawn and struts his stuff
His Lord and master is an Oxford buff
Both cat and man have horrid halitosis
Sebastian, therefore's learning by osmosis


20.Father & Son

His rights are few, this father with his son,
He's half a couple that has shrunk to one
He has a smaller car, a rented flat

One weekend out of three, into the park
The boy steps eager, home before its dark
Each moment crammed like clothing in a case
In case it floods...no Noah, and no ark

They're just relieved they can still meet these two
To talk as only dads and sons can do
Before the curfew ends, the tolling bell
How bright the greeting, heavy the adieu


21. On Becoming a Train

I am sitting on my reserved seat
I have evicted a surly boy from illegal occupancy
I am in my 'in transit' mode,
Neither a nor a that

A girl is seated beside me
Her podgy fingers, layered in black chipped varnish
Fish in her pocket, rise to slap on lippy.
New York is stitched on her cap
She is ticketed cargo.

We shoogle together, milk rattled in crates
A drunk staggers, knocking her bag to the floor
Its contents roll on display
`All men are arseholes' she grates

Behind my eyes, zipping from left to right
Is a black ribbon
Gold digital letters slide across its face
`Will passengers note, this train is potentially rowdy'

There. I have thought like a train
I think I may be a train

Soon I may see a guard appear on my nose
Running towards my brain, waving a red flag.


22. Last Kiss

After the birthing bed's red disarray
The rack of labour, comes a breathing space
The suckler at the nipple's come to stay
Sackcloth or silk, however we display
Our need (or lack of it) to garner grace
The portals of the flesh are sensory

Before the body turns to coffin clay
The parting spirit bends to kiss its face
It is the sweetest touch, the Irish say.


23.The Black Sheep

Green tea leaves pouring streams of monsoon rain
Into the brown cup of a valley in Ceylon
Miles of steaming jungle, the God Ganesh,
Pink as a baboon's bum, smiling at every corner

Frangipani, fruit bats, demon-scarers
Cockerels found with their throats slit in the night
The red gash splaying out the sticky feathers

Brown-legged toddy-tappers swarming up the palms
Heavy-eyed from their sweaty marriage beds
Bull elephants, mad in the rut
Trampling huts to mulch, in the hot season

Months as a white stone, alone on his hill
Surrounded by such fecundity, one day
The planter went beyond the pale, put on
A bright sarong. Borrowed a sleeping dictionary
Learning the Braille of loving at her breasts
Fathered two sons, Calvin and Kali
Writhing in their Tamil-Scotto veins.

Past issue-date, he returned the book, dog-eared.
Childless and bride less, he sailed off to his land of origin,
To the fold of a Scots retirement, back to his dour kirk,
Whose tight-kneed wives were chapters closed to him.
Strange how feet return to the roads that cut them


24.The Heretic

Every Sunday morning, back stiff, straight laced, face shined
We fed from a hellfire table, on sins and chidings dined
My friend had a church of statues, candles, a choir of saints
Chants and incense and flowers, windows with rainbow paints

In a cupboard behind the kitchen I cobbled a makeshift store
A shrine. My mother found it 'You'll be damned for evermore.
God's mansions are for Protestants and nobody else' she said
`He hates all papes and heathens. Think hard. You're a long time dead.'

I waved goodbye to the beadle, the elders, the wooden pew
I joined the sea of acceptance. I became the lotus dew.
Still when I look to heaven I half expect to see
A bitter congregation, showering arrows at me


25. Bear at the Window

The bear presses at everyone's window
Its wet muzzle, a threat to our safe house

One howl like Jericho could bring us down
Will not stop that wild darkness breaking in

Seen or unseen,
A bear is always there, on the far side of the glass
In the whirling snow
Its raw rules crossing continents and boundaries


26. Snap-shots Round Callander

Ragged robins lie with pee-the-beds in the ditch
Through a field, a sandy road's a desert ribbon
A rabbit scud's a shrapnel flash on a bank
Parachuting thistledown moves with a tank's velocity
Facing north, a crow squats on a street lamp
A guard, wearing his Busby into the wind.


27.Balquhidder in June

Robin, perched on a Buddha carved in oak
One so restless, one so still

A ewe like a walking table
Overflowing with snow
Its fringes balled and tasselled with its dung

The sky visiting hills
Forgetting whether its home is land or air

Bee's trampoline a raspberry bush
Half way from bounce to flight

Flowers set out their stalls of Hindi colours
A honeybee takeaway, a fast food larder

Tiny flies are gossiping over the stamens
Gossiping on the way from petal to leaf


28.Saving the planet

Grizzle's a lizard from Ghana
With a lemony-sherboty tail
She eats little children for breakfast
Including the ones that are stale

Her greenhouse emissions are tiny
Aside from the odd little fart
Caused by bending to varnish her toenails
Thereby squishing her bum to her heart

Four wheel drivers she readily savours
With smokers and cyclists as well
In fact she'll eat anything human
For Grizzle's the lizard from hell

She doesn't need heating nor laundry
Her four carbon footprints are pure
When Grizzle descends on a city
By morning, its folk are manure

Now science is currently trying
To clone her, to nurture brigades
Of Grizzles who'll prune populations
Save icebergs and green everglades

Beware of this lizard from Ghana
Her scales are of recycled glass
The planet composed her from plastic
And steel, from a Dutch underpass


29.In the Costas

In the cosy Costas,
Many-throated chars
Count their hard-earned brass
Into the posing pouches of Lotharios

In the cosy Costas
Days lie like straw hats on a table
Wanting to fill their heads
With day-trippers, fat nippers
Rip-offs, get-outs and set-ups

Old bodies lie on the beach
Fallow, like white tallow candles
Hoping the sun will suddenly
Light their flame