Poems Inspired By Paintings Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Two Letters of Thanks(Wheat Field with Crows: Van Gogh)

Dear Wood,
I want to thank you for saving my sanity
That time when the balance tipped
And the mind went humpty dumpty
Your leaves soothed and sheltered me
Your shifting shadows nourished my dry heart

Not by books
Not by words
Not by acts
Not by pills
Not by tears and admonitions
But by your power alone,
And the wider fields around you
You brought me back from the edge
Of fathoms of fall

Dear Corn,
I want to thank you for lifting the veil
From the howl of wolves and endless desolation
Your grain as you shook in the wind
With the sun dappling your stems
And smell of the good brown earth
Rising up from your legions
Anchored me to life
For better or worse,
In sickness and in health
May blessings drop like rain on your hallowed field


Cancer Comes(Three Oncologists: Ken Currie)
The housewife from Number four
The lab technician from Crewe
The florist who knew your mother
Her neighbour and cousin too

What did they do before,
Cancer came to reside
Eating away at the breast
Or the lung on the distaff side?

The dancer, the banker, the lord
All come under the knife
And after, the shedding hair
Of somebody's sister or wife

Cancer: an evil guest
Uninvited. How long will it stay?
Will it leave? Will its power be vanquished
To the dark will it dance you away?


Gypsies & Travellers (The Sleeping Gypsy: Henri Rousseau)
Gypsies and travellers I have known
All were generous with time and tales
Never at rest, like dropped leaves blown
Bearing the elements, storms and gales

A cornucopia, each, of songs
Merry they were but quick to rile
Bagpipe, fiddle or mandolin
Played with a tear or winsome smile

I've crossed their palms as the credulous do
(Stranger things have been done on earth)
And some of the things they told were true
And those that weren't were hardly worth

The settled folk in their rooted homes
Resent such cuckoos too near the nest
The travellers give not a hoot for that
They'll stop for a passing while to rest

Then off, for the fever to flit is strong
Off on the road with the kids and wife
Gypsies and travellers don't belong
To the stagnant house and the mortgaged life


The Incubus (The Nightmare Henry Fuseli)
I had a little Incubus,
It sat upon a chair
And in my sleep that incubus
Would roll its eyes and stare

It was a horrid looking thing
With pointy ears and toes
Its breath was rank as rotting flesh
Of rats and embryos

I had a little Incubus
When I grew well, he left
And strangely in a perverse way
I almost felt bereft



Sand(The Island of the Dead: Arnold Bocklin)
I had a father. I loved him well
Where he has gone no-one can tell
He has slipped through my hands like sand, like sand
He has slipped through my hands like sand

I had a grandmother, cheerful, kind
Stepped from her flesh, too far to find
She has slipped through my hands like sand, like sand
She has slipped through my hands like sand

I had a son, went into the dark
My guardian, my bold one, my singing lark
He has slipped through my hands like sand, like sand
He has slipped through my hands like sand

Out on the tide, where the billows roar
Sits the boat that will carry me to their shore
I shall slip from the land like sand, like sand
I shall slip from the land like sand


The Hunt(The Hunt in the forest Paulo Uccello)
A hunting we will go
A hunting we will go
We'll dog the fox with hound and gun
His blood will freely flow

A hunting we will go
A hunting we will go
We'll chase the hare till his heart bursts
And give the fatal blow

A hunting we will go
A hunting we will go
We'll bait the badgers all for sport
And nobody will know

A hunting we will go
A hunting we will go
Tis nature's way the hunters say
To keep the vermin low


Black Alchemy (Pieter Brueghel the Younger: The Alchemist)
I have seen hate twisting lives with its warped witchery
I have seen beggars, like fallen angels, hunched on the street
I have seen clouds transformed into juggernauts cruising the sky
I have seen minds lit up with knowledge, transmitting light
I have seen a man changed by drink to a gibbering ape
I have seen headstones in boneyards, where dead-eyed junkies slump
I have seen a woman stalker with the eyes of a cruel fox
I have seen a forest shimmer under rain,a glowing bride
I have seen a man dog tired, having slogged for a loaf of bread
I have seen cuts on a young girl's arm, like strange tattoos
I have seen a wreath of laurel in the gutter
I have seen a bluebottle crawl on a baby's cheek
I have seen a ruined cathedral, holding a lone white feather
I have seen a woman, her brain scooped out like an egg
I have seen a dying fish, like a warrior coddling his wounds
I have seen an earwig drop like a tear from a marigold's face
Black alchemy, changing from better or worse


Don't Start (Second Story Sunlight: Edward Hopper)
Don't start mother
I've got a figure and I'm going to show it
You've got your mouth on again
All pursed up like a sow's backside

Don't start mother
Stop with the running commentary
Nothing I do is right
My kids are lippy
My house is frowsy
Worse than a mouse on a wheel

I'm not your little girl anymore
Respect my boundaries
If you're going to go on
I'm out of here, right now

Did you know that Celia's mother
Has paid off her mortgage?
Now there's an example of love for you
Just saying…

Truth to TellRene Magritte: The Therapist
I told it to the birds- the birds didn't listen
I told it to a book- the book didn't question
I don't have a confessor- couldn't make an admission

I told it to the therapist
All that was occurring
I had to tell the therapist
My boundaries were blurring
I went and told the therapist
My thoughts were wildly whirring

The therapist revealed to me
My mind was built on sand
I'd sealed up ancient happenings
Should take them by the hand
And led them from past's mine-field
So I could understand

That cycles can be broken
Too late, to make it true
I had to tell the therapist
Well said, sir, and adieu


Rain(The Umbrellas, Renoir)
Rain comes cleansing, cooling, piddling, spilling
Trillions of dropsarriving uninvited
Rain comes drenching, drizzling, dripping, swilling
Down children's bonnets, coats, umbrellas, faces
With wetness ignited

It's the percussion element,
Tinkling like tiny bells, rolling like drumbeats, faster
Clattering over the cobbles, like horses without a master

Wheeeeee it skates off rooftops
Whooooosh it scours the gutters, makes boats of leaves
Hup! It is ushering people into cafes and shops
Whooooooop it is puddle-wonderful for wellies to splash up knees

In picnics, sandwiches sog, rain turns a meadow to a morass
Ping! The worms rise up to the swampy surface ofgrass

Now everyone's sheltering
The rain comes heltering skeltering
Skittishly squirting from spouts
Pouring down window panes like a waterfall
Showering like grain on a drum
Rain, ricocheting like bullets off every wall


Over the Town(Over the Town: Marc Chagall)
I would fly as a bat, as a bat
Over the spire and the steeple
When the moon is high in the sky
And the streets are thin of people

I would fly as an owl, as an owl
When the fox pads through the wood
Where the mouse in its shelter quakes
And the badger tends her brood

I would fly as a lark, as a lark
To the sun on a windy day
When the breeze shakes the heads of corn
Like a child's rattle at play

I would fly as a wren, a wren
Hidden by secret mist
When the evening dews come down
And the lake is by moonlight kissed


Global &LocalThe Fall of Icarus: Pieter Brueghelthe Elder

Chernobyl's melt down poisoned Russian air
With half a million hurt, their homes, no-go
In Oshawa, a family hired a lodge,
To hunt and fish by Lake Ontario

The Indian Ocean's murderous tsunami
Rose up one hundred feet into the sky
A quarter of a million lives it took
A lost ice cream in Troon made a child cry

Vesuvius buried Pompeii with its lava
A city frozen in its pumice pall
Marcus Vorenus broke a sandal strap
While marching to subdue the tribes of Gaul

Hurricane Katrina laid to waste
Acres across America's rich land
The McPhee family in Dunfermline
Watched TV, hired a take-away as planned

An Gorta Mór, great hunger, Ireland's scourge
A million died, a million left that shore
In Essex a fat English county squire
Dined on a dish of pigeon and wild boar

A plane falls from the sky, a man, a bird
It's not our problem, happening elsewhere
Assaulted on all sides from pleas for help
We grow inured to it, and cease to care

Cheers (Hogarth's Gin Lane)
Gesondheid!
Santé!
Prohst!
Sláinte!
Cin cin!
Salud!
Skål!

Actor & footballer, reality TV
Falling out of clubs and bars
At half past three

Fisticuffs& face-offs
Sexual harassment
Girls falling pregnant
When it wasn't their intent

Toddler in the buggy
Grizzling unheard
Parents sowsed with Buckfast
Haven't caught a word

Woman wears a black eye
Every second day
Too cowed to up and leave him
Is love brutality?

Child in the corner
Kicked around by dad
Any little something
Gets him riled and mad

Cheers! It's been raining
Any old excuse
To drink yourself insensible
Or stoned on monkey juice

Rum or gin or whiskey
Vodka doesn't smell
Cirrhosis, blackouts, memory loss
The merry road to hell


Pets, Weird and Wonderful(Albrecht Durer's Hare)
William Cowper took three hares to own
As pets, although the eldest liked to bite
They healed him when his nervous state broke down
Along Parisienne paths: a stunning sight
Gérard de Nerval, on a blue silk lead
Walked his pet lobster, by the pansies bright
Lucius Crassius, a strange man indeed
Favoured a Moray eel, fed it on slaves
For human dainties were its daily feed
Lord Byron like to stir up social waves
With his amigo, a great lumbering bear
For this is how a mad, bad, bard behaves

Salvador Dali walked with his ant eater
Shahad al-Jaber, kisses her pet cheetah

Michael Jackson housed a chimpanzee
While Nero's favourite was the tigress, Phoebe
Anne Boleyn kept a lapdog on her knee
(today, designer pets are bought on e-bay)
An orang-utan lived with Josephine
Napoleon's wife, she served it on a tray
John Quincy Adams caused his guests to scream
For in the bath he homed an alligator
And you can picture, if you will, the scene
When a guest left-or did she- did he eat her?
King Elvis Presley's pet, a kangaroo
Played nicely as an act in the theatre

A pet to play with, love, or reverence
Fin, feather, fur: say, what's your preference?


La Pelegrina (Girl with Pearl Earring: Vermeer)
La Pelegrina, pearl to delight the eyes
Found by a slave in the gulf of Panama
Don Pedro, governor, then freed
The man for bringing to him such a prize

Philip of Spain became its royal owner
Gifted to Tudor Mary, a love token
She wore it as a pendant to a brooch
Bloody Mary, by martyr burnings broken

In Vedic texts, all pearls on earth are born
Out of the water and by moonlight's power
Some say that pearls are tears shed by the gods
Eve's eyes dropped pearls when she left her bower

Napoleon's brother, owned the gem as booty
The Duke of Abercorn, acquired her, too
Till Burton, with the money from his movies
Bought her to woo Liz Taylor, Hollywood Royalty
Cartier setting the pearl with diamonds, rubies.

In Asia a pearl necklace aids fertility
In Polynesian lore, the pearl is black
The Chinese love gold pearls: they bring prosperity

In many Eastern cultures, pearls are souls
And mourners placed them in the dead man's mouth
At Christie's in New York, La Pelegrina
Fetched ten million dollars. Such great wealth!

So, does the pearl really own the owner?
What should a glossy stone be really worth?


The Small Dream (Caspar Friedrich, Wanderer Among the Sea of Clouds)
I am only a little dream
A small one, quiet and hurting
Frozen under the ice

Sometimes I claw at the lid above my head
I whine, mouth imprecations
I live in perpetual winter
Staring up at astonished sky

My world is faceless and stark
I am only a little dream
A vanished hope, a memory

I am only a little dream
A small one, quiet and hurting
Frozen under the ice


Drowned(Ophelia, Sir John Everett Millais)
Water, water, soft and slow
Flowers float where corpses go
To the reeds that thread the hair
That fishes nibble in their lair

Water, water, rock them kind
The drowned, who step out from the mind
To forget, to flee, to lose.
Happenins they did not choose

Water, water, dark and deep
Wrap them in your winding sheet
Close the eyes and stop the heart
Those transfixed by Sorrow's dart

Under the Skin(The Death of Marat:Jacques-Louis David)
Maratlies dead in a bath of oameal
His head swathed in a turban soaked in vinegar

There is no trace of the victim's imperfections,
Moral or physical. He is painted as a martyr

No sign of the open sores, the burning blisters
The marks of syphilis/scrofula/scabies/leprosy
Atopic eczema /dermatitis or psoriasis.
His weeping skin is canonized, mythologised

He is made pure by the artist's skill,
Propaganda of the paint, the airbrushing eye

In Britain, laws are passed
To limit the refugee crisis

Will the fleeing French bring anarchy?
Will their blood lust overturn the status quo?

Pull up the drawbridge
Block the loopholes
Terror gets under the skin
The Scream (The Scream: Munch)
It isn't the scream that's awful
It's the whisper, encounter with bleakness
That moment alone in the city
The split carapace of coping shows its weakness

I am the lady of night
Grief is my lean handmaiden
My sorrow is made to measure
Six foot down, with black clods laden

My mouth is full of flies
My scream's where my womb's flesh lies
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