14 Poems From The Housewife's Dream Poem by Sheena Blackhall

14 Poems From The Housewife's Dream



1.Pink Elephant Blues
I'm the pink elephant in the alki ward
I'm the jumbo that hoovers up gin
It's a British disease from the Empire Days
I drink oodles of it at tiffin

I see two of everything, totter about
But an elephant never forgets
I've hidden a bottle behind the fridge
That I stole from the local vets


2.Bees Knees
TV serves meaning up on a plate
Like a fast food takeaway,
A two minute microwave meal

People who visit galleries
Must put effort into the viewing

Each artist nails his colours to the mast
Look long and hard.
He is slowly unbuttoning his mind

But let's face it, you came in here to enjoy the quiet
Nobody kicks their heels or flashes their knickers
Outside of the frame.

Enjoy the honey dripping from the hive of paint
Each picture's the bees' knees


3.The Housewife's Dream
In the drudgery of day
Baking, sifting flour refined
Makes a blizzard in the bowl
Cribbles through the sieve of mind
Monstrous mounds of ironing
Seem to mate and multiply
How she loathes, recoils with hate
From their detested progeny

Fancy floats to sheets of ice
High above the here and now
Like Chagall's fantastic sky
By its moon, a flying cow

4. Shock Wave, Hiroshima
After it left the hatch
It fell for 53 seconds
Then the bomb exploded

The plane, rocked in the shock wave
A clear, sunshiny day
The cloud, rising and boiling
From the city below
That looked like a spill of tar

On the ground, the air was heavy with yellow smoke
White flakes of powder dropped like burning snow

All the buildings for miles burst into fire
Trees and sweet potatoes smoked and burned

Iron itself was melted
Like Hungry Ghosts, the people ran and ran
And all the while their skin peeled off like paper


5.Nell Gwyn
My name is Nell Gwyn, I am witty and slim
Coal Yard Alley was where I was raised
My ma ran a bawdy house, famed in the town
Where her zeal in the bedroom was praised

I cross-dressed for a time, like a tar of the line
Then sold herring and oysters and gin
And at Old Drury Lane, I won oodles of fame
Selling oranges, comforts and sin

But jesting apart, I'm the tart with a heart
As Charlie, the King, can attest
For we frequently sport in and out of the court
Both over and under my vest

Seven hundred and thirty five pricks I assuaged
And every one was a cad
Then I settled for one, for when all's said and done
Too much of a good thing is bad


6.All Grown Up
She seems a very melancholy being
To be so young yet to appear so dead
To life. The Gothic look is unappealing
As if she'd risen from a vampire's bed
Or forged a friendship with a hoodie crow
She should be dancing, laughing, but instead
Her pouting hints at hurts which do not show
Perhaps a lover's tiff? Some darker ill
Self-hatred brings so many youngsters low
They all aspire to be top of the bill
Be famous for five minutes on the air
Forever seeking the next buzz or thrill
And when fame proves elusive, they despair
And sulk and mope and sigh, and tear their hair


7. The Pylon as Stalker
Once I saw a pylon,
Deep in the heart of a blizzard
Its power lines down
Like a christening shawl unravelled

That image stalked me
Thrust four thoughts into my mind
Like shopping I hadn't intended buying

Aloneness
Alienation
Silence
Melancholy

No point of reference
Madness personified


8.Wicker Pods
On the first day of May
In the land of Tir nan Og
Wigwam gave birth to Wickerman's quads

It was an odd coupling
Wickerman was originally drawn
To wigwam's bulbous shape

He had developed a taste for traffic cones and party hats
Which he had seen at Glastonbury
Before his annual ritual burnings

Wigwam adore his woven look,
The way he wrapped his arms around her
So strong, so flexible.

It's always the children who suffer, isn't it?
They were neither either tent nor fence,
Four pods seeking an identity of their own


9. The Eviction
The sheriff's officers came knocking
Wilful non-payment of rent is a serious matter

She left in the clothes she stood up in
(A pair of rolled down nylons and a hat)
Dragged a bale of bedding over the cobbles

A bed was found for her in a psychiatric unit
A nightdress was provided, free of charge
Another civic cover up for poverty


10.The Chennai Carrom Player
Carrom is played in India
Ancestor of snooker, pool and billiards
It is played with counters
You flick the pieces into the pockets
Using a striker.

Children as young as seven
Can learn it easily.
It is played all over Asia, for cash prizes.

A Chennai girl, became a world champion,
Untouchable, her parents and two sisters
Lived in a single room in a city slum
Her pa sold fish
She wanted to help her family.
£14,000.00 this girl won!
Her neighbour, a rag picker, wed at age 14
Picks plastic waste from the street to feed her family

This neighbour's cousin is a sewer diver
He's rich…gets £3.50 every day
To clear the drains of filth, without protection
He will not live long, but can fill his belly.

Serious play, the simple game of Carrom
Every strike may bring food on the plate


11. Four Things Seen on a Fine May Morning
Two crows strung on a wire
Two dandelions, wafting
A rutted hill track, grassy bridle road
A cow, quietly shitting


12. Twenty Geishas
Twenty Geishas went to sea
In a vessel of polished pine
The trades' routes offered to fill their coffers
For sharing their virtues free

The Flying Dutchman closed his sails
For the Geishas to step aboard
And what transpired it certainly fired
Their spirits which simply soared

The Marie Celeste, they encountered next
Do you wonder it's not been found?
With kisses of honey and blandishments sunny
The steersman he ran aground


So if twenty Geishas you should see
When you're sailing the ocean wide
Don't let them on deck, your ship they will wreck
Keep hard on the starboard side!


13.Kesson Country, Rothienorman
The dark land of the farm lies buried under snow
Glittering like mica, black trees in the sun
Cast long blue shadows

Kesson country, where Jessie Grant McDonald
Born in a Highland workhouse
Came, via a Skene orphanage,
Cornhill Asylum and marriage
To drudge as a cottar's wife

Winter has made for the earth
A quilt of frost, bare but beautiful
Needing nor seeking any ornamentation

A lone bird trills in a thorn
It is peaceful as the grave

After the cries of troubled souls
In the locked wards of the town
After the squalid grunts of her mother's
Clients, coupling in an Elgin slum
The dark lands by Fyvie, empty and cool
Lay in her mind like a balm, an outstretched virgin
Untouched, pristine and calm


14. Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch
Have you heard of the orange tree glade
Where cockles and shells whisper charms and spells
And peacock-tail flowers are arrayed?

Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch
The shades are luxuriant brown
And up in the sky, where clouds dawdle by
There's a serious child, upside down

Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch
The vista's expansive and grand
You may see the sun float, like a wind-propelled boat
Through a nimbus the colour of sand

Hieronymus Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch
Step into the world of Joe Fan
There's a ladder that leads to a book in the reeds
Just the home for a Renaissance man!

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