Poems In Scots & English From Knight, Death & The Devil Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The Glen of Lost Miracles
Here a stag grew from a bush
In a blaze of heraldic glory
The sun behind head, a Pagan halo

Here burns were unstrung necklaces
Tumbling jetty down the purpling braes

Here was a crucible of staar spangle
Moon shimmer, sun spray

Here was a Quaich of bird song
Fox cough, toad rasp

Here I was a bog child birthed by peat and ine
An adder curled in my hand like a diamond torque


Murial Spark
Ideas poured from the pen of Murial Spark
We read Miss Jean Brodie with delight.
(That Scottish teacher was the queen of snark)

The author lived a life of light and dark
Experience gave her fiction extra bite
Half Jew, half Scots, raised in a tartan ark

She'd worked with spymasters, war-time was stark
She'd lived in Africa, a time of blight
(Marriage can be a dolphin or a shark)

Kensington, Florence, where she left her mark
Was in her novels. Success flew her kite
Memento mori, no walk in the park.

Her thoughts soared fast, an Edinburgh lark
Work was the thing that set her world alight,
The Comforter, she simply lived to write.
The monarch of the sharp, Ms Murial Spark.


Three Peculiar Creatures

1.A prickly young hedgehog called Fred
Swopped his nest for a nice water bed
But the force of his prickles
Much sharper than thistles
Pierced the bed, and Fred drowned
Now he's dead

2.A gorilla went shopping in Ayr
For products to pamper her hair
Which she dyed shocking pink
Which made onlookers blink
And her dandruff flew off everywhere

3.Molony the mole set off jogging
With toad who kept fit by leapfrogging
In a race to a tree
Down at Clacton on sea
And the sweat from Molony was bogging


7 Scots Owersetts

Green Beret: A Scots Owerset of a poem by Ho Thien
He wis twal year auld
An I dinna ken his name
The sodjers tuik him an his faither
Fa's name I dinna ken
Ae morning, up on the heich plateau
Green Beret luiked doon on the dweeble loon
Wi the een o a hurtit breet, an thocht
‘a gweed fricht'll gar him spikk'
He gied an order- the faither wis taen awa#
Ahin the wids green waa
‘Richt bairn tell us far they are
Tell us far or yer faither- deid.'
Wi een noo bricht an reamin wi fleg
The dweeble loon said naethin
‘ye've got ae meenit bairn, ' quo Green Beret
‘tell's far or we kill faither'
An powked his wrist watch again a physog aa een
The secunt haun turnin, yarkin on its wey
‘ok loon, ten secunts tae tell us far they are.'
In the hinmaist secunt the siller haun blootered the
Lift an the wid o trees.
‘kill the auld cheil, ' roared Green Beret
An shots haimmered oot
Ahin the wids green waa
An lift an trees an sodjers stude
In seelence, an the loon skirled oot.
Greeb Beret stude
In seelence as the loon hunkered doon
An chokit wi sabbin
As bairnie's dae fin their faither dees
‘christ' quo ae sodjer tae Green Beret
‘He didnae ken a damned thing
We killt the auld cheil fur naethin.'
Sae they aa gaed awa
Green Beret an his sodjers
An the loon kent aathin
Hekent aa aboot them, the caves
The pathies, the happit bields an the names
An in the meenit that he cried oot
In thon same meenit
Guairdit bi shilpit tears
Far stranger than ony waa o steel
They gaed awa
Like tigers
Ower the heich plateau


Wang Changling (690-756) : Laistin Trust: Autumn Sang (1)
She takks her besom tae the Empress's gowd haa
Fin it opens at brakk o daysyne she uphauds her roon fan
An wanners aboot fur a whyle
Her luiks are byordnar, bit arena a match
Fur thon o the Winter Craa
Camin frae the Bricht Sun Palace
Its feathers still glimmrin wi royal licht


Chen Ziang: 690-756Sclimmin Youzhou Touer (2)
Luikin ahin, we canna see the fowk o the past
Luikin forrit, we canna see fowk yet tae cam
I think on H eiven an Eirde, braid an aybydan
An lanesome, rived wi sorra, ma tears doonfaa

Wang Jian: 751-830 The Newly Wad Wife (3)
Eftir three days I gaed doon tae the kitchie
Washed ma hair, an cuiked a weel-stocked soup
I didna ken ma mither-in-law's taste in meat
Sae I got ma teenie sister-in-law tae try it first

Zhang Ji: 776-89 An Auld Frien Tint in Tibet (4)
Later in the fecht on the Yuezhi
The men wir aa killt aneth the fortress waas
News atween Tibet an the Han wis cut aff
There wis nae body tae gaither up her aff cast tent
Yer shelt cam back- I kent the remains o yer flag
I'd offer up a sacrifice- bit ye micht still be leevin
I greet, noo, wi sabs that gae tae the edge o the lift


Apollon Maykov: 1821-1897The Hey Hairst (5)
The guff o hey is on the park
As singin ane an aa
The weemen haive the wechty shaives
An spreid them raw bi raw

An thinner, far the hey is dry
Each cheil his forkful haives
Until the cairt is biggit heich
A hoose vrocht ooto shaives

The puir auld shelt fa rugs the cairt
Stauns reeted in the heat
Wi bucklin knees an lugs apairt
He's near asleep, puir breet

Wee Tatterwallops rins awa
An barks wi bravery
An dives an founers in the hey
As in a girssy sea


Becam the Lift (Rumi) (6)
Becam the lift
Takk an aixe tae the waa
Escape
Wauk oot like somebody
O a suddenty, born intae colour


Dear Body
Dear Body,
Please shrink
Put simply I'd like less of you
Lately, you've begun to resemble a space hopper
Your surplus skin's like Norah Battie's tights

Gums stop receding now
My mouth's become a piano arpeggios

Ears, you've diminished my powers
Of eavesdropping on buses
Aborting many a juicy scandal tale

Eyes without spec-aid from Boots
Sight would be looking through candyfloss into fog

Colon…thank you for growing a polyp the sixe of a cherry
The surgeon was so proud…he held it up like a ruby

Bowel. Now that you're hoisted up
Stitched up by the NHS
Everything else lurched forward like a crash
The abdominal hernia's a belly globe of skin

Did I mention you, nails?
All ridged like a furrowed field

Hair, for the cost of my electrolysis
I could have enjoyed six world cruises
I keep away from mirrors on the whole
No woman wants to go bearded like a goat
Moustachioed like a Venezuelan drug lord
Body…don't get me started on the soul


A Polomint Dreams
The polomint dreams of being an Olympic circle
The polomint dreams of becoming a Mars Bar halo
The polmint dreams of saving a fly from drowning
The polomint dreams of becoming a thin girl's corset
The polomint dreams of transcending into a smoke ring
The polomint dreams oforbiting planet Saturn


Hedgehog (3)
My vision is blurry
My girth is roly-poly
I think I have hedgehog genes

I am prickly to prove it
Try not to draw too close
You'll feel me scratch
Like Robert the Bruce's schiltrons
Prickles in aa directions