Sheena Blackhall Poems

1. The Puddock

The puddock hunkers on his hurdies
Sittin on his dowp.
...

(for Dr. J.D.Gomersall, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Research, Sheffield)

The morning sun has risen oer the hill
And dawn is golden, pale as sifted wheat
...

The cello slits on her nose release a melodious moo.
Her copper pelt is soft as a maidenhair.
Spittle sits in the silky folds of her mouth,
Like seeds of milky dew.
...

It warms the cockles of the heart,
Morecambe Bay. Kiss me Quick
The summer bus- trip- tourist paradise.
...

The Irish Soldier
Edward Marshall is my name
Ireland is my nation
Leeds is my dwelling place
...

I was ten when I married
Just after my periods started
I was a woman now, my father said
...

Alice, a wife who was frigid
When her husband approached became rigid
Till he thought that she'd thawed
When she hissed and she clawed
...

After the marquee dance I crossed a field of frosty turnips
My stilettos cobbling on the rutted furrows

The taste of a farm boy's kiss
...

At the peak of their powers, from London to Leith
They died in their dozens, brave, coward and thief
But to sufferers with toothache each man did bequeath
A prize beyond measure, his Waterloo teeth
...

No-one, once, could tell the age of lobsters
Canadian scientists learned to count the rings
In their eye-stalks. Eureka, it was done!
Everyone thought the world possessed two moons
...