Secrets (English Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Scots Lesson
A flame haired little girl in a tartan skirt
Dances across the screen. She lives
On a make-believe Hebridean island.
Cross legged, small pupils from Tibet to Nigeria
Watch this world that is peopled with
Grannies, hens, sweeties, pets and teddies

A month now, I've watched this scrap from the Niger
With the look of a lost doll, staring up at the film
Her black braids tightly pleated and pinned down
No English as yet, adrift in a sea of Babel
She has come from the land of Boko Haram
Of genital mutilation, of the sight stealing Tsetse fly
Of elephantiasis, HIV, malaria

On the screen, the flame haired girl is cherished,
Kissed and cuddled, she plays on a pretty beach
Well fed, nothing sinister lurks in the heather
No cutting knife, no drought, no malnutrition

Suddenly, the small dark cheek rests on my knee
The tiny fingers trace the veins on my hand
Like a fawn, fathoming out the lie of this new land


Jessica Jessica
Jessica, Jessica coloured the cat
Not the hallway, the doorway, the floor or the mat
It isn't bright yellow or purple in hue
Jessica, Jessica coloured it blue

Now it slinks through the garden, its street cred in bits
When other cats see it they fall into fits
It looks like a punk, it's the talk of the lawn
All it needs are tattoos. When it gives a great yawn
The other cats look at its teeth and they flee
Jessica, Jessica, don't colour me!


I Have Memorized Spring
I have memorized spring
My inner sight sees perilous snowdrops
Stretch through mottled leaves

I have memorized spring
That memory soothes
The tenacious aches of age
It feeds the dying days

I have memorized spring
Its avalanche of blossoms
Its pompom catkins, bobbing
Like shadow boxers

I have memorized spring
As part of the pilgrimage of time

A spider spins my shroud
Though all the world
Is bee and swallow loud

Coconut Baby
I gave birth to a coconut baby
Black hair straight up like a Mohawk
Like a sheaf of inky exclamations

His skin was waxed white as a candle
As if he'd been rolled in dough

His debut under the lights of a hospital theatre
Star billing, his first performance

Now he is forty. A Dons supporter,
Father, husband,working engineer
Eater of pizzas, cooker of pungent curries

He is playful. He panders to the cat
Indulging its finicky tastes

I reared him on pancakes and porridge
Brambles, gooseberries, rasps

As a child, he drew comics.
His imagination stretched like elastic.
PING till life snapped him back
The Village of Coull
I come again and again to the village of Coull
Place of the dead, whose tombstones say ‘We matter'

Each incumbent lies under a cloth of green
Where small birds hop after the crumbs of summer
And soft rains patter down in sweet July

I come to visit my son,
To mourn for his half lived days
He is a permanent tenant of thisplace
Now, I come as a guest. Some day, I'll be a lodger.


Father (5)
Stubble lathered with soap
The scrape of a razor blade

Bending over the sink
Water draining away
In gurgling whirlpools

Calmer of worries and woes
Lullaby singer, soother of sores

Hammering, levelling, nailing
Powerful, clever, lithe- limbed and athletic
Golfer, cricketer, footballer, a versatile all rounder
That such a tiny thing as a stomach ulcer
Could fell that Samson like a hoof kick to the gut
Making his meals a constant munch on glass


The Toilet Lady
In Jaipur, the toilet lady
Squats by the door, her scarlet sari
Is a burning flame

In her right hand, a sheaf of paper
In her left, a tin for coins
Her limbs look brittle as twigs

All day she sits in this stinking place
Listening as the bottoms of the world
Release their cargo of excrement
To a watery crescendo

Like a cornered butterfly
She is the western tourist's
Hand maiden of hygiene,


The River Dee
Woopeedoo! ! !
In the beginning I'm bubble some as a baby in a bath
Frothy, flighty, a real live wire
Pure as dewdrops, mischievous as cuckoo spit
I'm a rollicker, a frolicker
I hoppity skip down the Bens
I am the broth of the morning without the bones

Cup me in your hands
I'll baptise your skin
Willows trail in me
Fir trees float their shadows

Paddler's fishers, swimmers
Even suicides I receive them all no question

Nearing the city, I'm a crone
A shawl of haar's on my back
The weight of my long journey has wearied me
I give myself up to the sea
Lay down my oily burden

Picasso's Head of a Woman
I am the right eye of Picasso's woman
I look down always, never, never up
I never see hats, just shoes

I only know the properties of pavements
I look over cracks, tree roots, small dogs, and kerbs
I see shadows, subways, cigarette stubs, gum
I do not dare look up

The artist has condemned me to be passive
Submissive. My horizon is bounded by feet
Wet matches in muddy alleys

A strange perspective, one step up from Hades
I am in love with puddles, with reflections
Strange muse, to so contort a face


The Poetry Book's Lament
How sorrowful the lonely poetry book
Unread, unopened, real cause for lament
Gathering in dust in some benighted nook

The poet gives me not a second look
As if I was some Judas coin she'd spent
I am a cast off, something gross she shook

From off her shoe. My emblem is the rook
Black omened nightmare bird of ill repute
If I am bought, it's often by a fluke
From Basingstoke to Cambridge to Tobruk
Poetry books are gifted, borrowed, lent
Much greater are the books for those who cook
Perhaps some recipes might be the hook
With food for gut and soul together blent?


The Heart of the Home
The heart of my childhood home wasmusic
A piano, a mandolin,
A zither, guitar, harmonica
Jews harp and song
I breathed this out and in
Rhythm was deep within my family's bones
Heart of the house, it thrummed along our veins


The Little Bonsai Tree (2)
I am a human Bonsai tree
My voice is pruned to poetry
No mighty oak or pine am I
In my small space beneath the sky
Crooked and skewered, it's kind you see
To foster anonymity