Scots Poems From Chacun À Son Goût / Fitiver Floats Yer Boat: Pamphlet No 171 Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Chacun à son gout
Some fowk ett buckies like sweeties
Or Walker's crisps

Buckies hae hoosies like Rooshun domes
Wi funcy furls on tap

Their dowp's like a sink plunger
Sooks ontae rocks sae that it winna drap

It heists its inky hornies oot
Fin wi a sweesh, the satty sea
Cams sweelin roon aboot


The Rovin Reporter
Here's a report frae:
Ahin the serpent lines in the Gairden o Eden
In a bunker in Ony War
The Klingon Emperor's screen
A glamp-pod chemical lavvie
The flechs o a shargeret tyke
A deid yowe on Eriskay
A pyokefu o Haribos
The Harry Potter railwye

Ye'll finn us on Twitter as weel


The Yew Tree
The yew tree is derk as a press
Pontius Pilot wis born aneth her branches
Tree o intrusions

Druids socht her in rituals an ceremonies
Queen o the pysoned preens, Daith's lifelang frien
Tree o illusions

Robert the Bruce cut bowes
Frae the sacred yews o the Ardchattan Priory
Death bringer tae English faes
Tree o conclusions

Frae Ice Age tae peat bog,
Haly tae Hecate, the triple goddess
Shamans smoked her rikk tae dream in veesions


Tony Blair
Tony Blair he spakk hett air
On airms o mass destruction
His lees an posin kinnelt war
An international ruction


Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson rides a bike
His hair's like Oor Willy
He weirs a mask fur aa events
An locks doon wi a filly


Dominic Cummings
Dominic Cummings it's weel kent
Is fly as Machiavelli
An nane believe a wird he sez
Fin he cams on the telly


Prenuptual
Fin we divorce
Quo the tree tae the leaf
I'm keepin the sap.
Ye can haud ontae yer shape
Bit I'll hae custody o the seeds

Blaw ooto ma face
An nae a skirp o alimony
Fin yer yesterday's news
Get ower it. It's the midden fur ye
Fin we divorce


The Tint Hoover
It's nae ahin the TV screen
It's nae aneth the cat
It's nae inbye the microwave
It's nae nearhaun ma hat

I think it's run awa frae hame
Tae sneak intae a rocket
Sae it can flee roon Saturn
Plugged in a cosmic socket


Air Space
The concept of air rights, holds that property owners have the rights to the land underneath them going all the way to hell, and the air above them going all the way to heaven.

I'm gaun tae buy the air space,
Abune ma Scottish hoose
I'll ain richt up tae Heiven
The hame o Thor an Zeus

I'll larn tae pluck the harp strings
Abune a wattergaw
An wi ma wings ahin me
I'll nae be feart tae faa

I winna veesit Saturn,
Auld Clootie's birsslin neuks
I dinna like it ower hett
It brings me oot in plooks


Stoor
Stoor lies in dry plooed rigs
Crummles in kirkyairds

Wirms an mowdies explore her
She's the auncient hame fur corpses
An wrunkled tree reets

Plooshares turn stoor in her bed
Like a luver's haun

Teuchat's nest on her
Bawds rest on her

Stoor cweels in meenlicht
Warms tae the sun at noon

Maister brock bides snod
In her derk bield

Girse an corn
Are the win-swypt hair o stoor
Tae a fermer, she's blaik an bonnie as Bethsheba
Wis tae the een o Israel's King David


Simmer Barbecue
Plottin hett mangst the dunes, faimlies steer in the heat.
In the heivens, kites like buzzards soar ower rikk
O fires frae barbecues birsslin creashie meat

Bairns heeze like midgies, playin on the braes
Flip flops flappin, skirlin tae the swings
Ithers dook in the sea, breenge intae waves

Das hauf nyaakit, turn each spirkin chop,
As in a cercle, diners dowp doon, wytin.
Mithers cairry ice creams, wud tykes yap
Ane o the faimily hauns aroon the plates
Ane o the faimily poors oot juice or beer
Ane o the faimily meisurs oot kebabs
Skewers o chucken fit fur an emir
In this byordnar simmer, virus bladdit,
Frae locked doon neighborhoods fowk cam
Wintin a whylie's freedom, pleisur stappit


Sabbath Preparations,1950s
Mither is weirin a mink coat. Her moo is a ticht line
Her eebroos are pluckit
Kirbies hae furled flat curls in her hair.

She his pattit her neb wi pooder
Her sheen are sheenin,
The lines on her hose are straicht

The toon is deid, is seelent
The antrin cat patrols the granite dykes

Mither yarks ma fingers intae gloves
I am weirin ma best sark, jaiket, knickers, hat
Ma collection penny's stappit in ma pooch

The meenister's langamachie drones on
He flings himsel aboot like a hen on a hett griddle
Rants aboot hell an sin an sic like maitters

I am the wee-est deevilick unner the steeple
I glower intae the glaiss ee o a tod
Hung ower a wumman's thrapple
Deid an oorie


Smirr
I liked the smirr
Fin ither bairns hashed hame
I'd bide aneth the aiks
Their leaves grown weety
Like a green erne's feathers
I'd watch the Dee furl roon
The antrin stane, clouds in the lift
Waucht by like coracles

Smirr bathed ma face
Sae cweelin an sae kind
At peace wi ilkie reestin bird an craitur


The Wasp
Wasp is coorse, is nesty, stings fur fun
Readin a buik ae day, mid-sentence
I heard the deevilish bizzin in ma chaumer
I saw the yalla strippit bizzim
Dive bomb tae the windae,
Sherp dowp curvin

Fleg tuik ower. I pit the buik tae eese
The pouer o wirds. I squashed the wasp
Tae smush. She drapped frae the curtains
I sweir she sizzled wi rooze.

Her brukken wings lay flichtless
Like sails brocht doon in a storm
Her horrid pyson pyoke straikt ower the page
Her sting like an unsheathed rapier
Proddin Daith


In the Deep Deep Nicht
In the derk o the meen
In ma deid gransire's ferm
I watched heich constellations licht the Heivens

The air aroon wis strang wi the yoam o hey
The ghaistly echoes o horse braisse
Clinked in the seelence

A brock steppt oot frae the shaddas
Slivvers dreeped frae its mou
Ae bluidy feather stukken tae its jowls

Its een kent me an faced me
Nae a pick o fear, it ained its richts as tenant

In the byre the muckle bull
Snochered an peched, sweengin his muckle baas
In the breem buss flooers,
A wyver's wab hung like a pearlin necklace

I gaed doon tae the edge o the corn park
The grain, like a host o quines
Reeshled intae ripeness
Fuspered the aucient story o the hairst


Diddle Diddle Dumplin
Diddle Diddle Dumplin Elton John
Sang tae the gweed fowk o Saigon
Aa rigged oot like a Xmas Tree
Lowpin on the pianie like a fiddler's flee


The Hurcheon (Hedgehog)
There aince wis a hurcheon caad Harry
Fa punctured the tyres on a larry
He wis teuch as auld buits
Fae his neb tae his cweets
Gin ye crossed him by God ye'd be sorry


Booin the Knee
There wis a teenie nut tree
Naethin wid it hear
Bit jazz frae Amy Whitehouse
Fin guzzlin German beer

It litter-pykt on Everest
Wore face masks in Paree
It hid a social conscience
An at fitbaa booed the knee
It wis an eco warrior
Fur lowse tectonic plates
It cairried stickin plaisters
Fur fin life disintegrates



Scots Owerset o Fit's Coorse: Gottfried Benn (1886-1956)
Nae readin English,
an hearin aboot a new English thriller
that hisnae bin owersett.

Seein a cauld beer fin it's hett oot,
an nae haein the siller tae buy it

Haein an idea
That souns like a dominie
Glossin a line of Hölderlin,

Hearin the waves dunt agin the shore on holiday at nicht,
an tellin yersel it's fit they aywis dae.

Verra coorse: bein socht oot,
fin yer ain chaumer at hame is quaeter,
the coffee is better,
an ye dinna hae tae blether styte.

An waur o aa:
Nae tae dee in simmer,
fin the days are lang
an the eirde yields easy tae the spaad.


Scots Owersett o Hoosefu o Echt by Abraham Reisen (1876-1953)
Hoosefu o echt
Beds are twa
Fit it growes late
Fit dae they dae?

Three wi faither. Three wi mither
Limbs sprauchlin ower each ither

Fin it's night an they gae tae bed
Mither sterts tae wish she wis deid

A restin place
Aa o her ain
Nerra- bit ye sleep alane