27 English Poems, The Gargoyle Man Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1.Four Reasons for Writing Free Verse
It's a harmless pastime, she confessed
And I'm hopeless at baking or knitting

You meet such interesting people in the group
Fellow spirits, you know and since the divorce….

My psychiatrist says it's better out than in
And if it's poetry I can call it fiction

I just cut up my prose like chopping veg
And people like to say, ‘My friend, the poet'


2.Gloucester
Dr Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain
He stood in a puddle right up to his middle
And never went there again

Harry Potter's film crew went
To Gloucester for a set
They turned the cloisters into Hogwarts
Where small boy wizards leapt


3.The Arboretum Tree Rap Tortworth Court, England
Blue Atlantic Cedar,
Chinese Cowtail Pine
Pagoda tree Japonica,
Weeping Silver Lime
Persion Ironwood
Ohio Buckeye
Sweetgum Liquid Amber
Katsusu, Keaki
California Nutmeg
Highclere Holly
Corkscrew Hazel
Shellback Hickory
Paperback Maple
Acer Palmatum
Cucumber Tree
Henry's Chinese Vibernum


4.A Bristol Lass
Shirley Crystal went to Bristol
To purchase an uplift bra
It split on her chest
Her bristols went west
Men said, What a flat girl you are!


5.Chester
A Cheshire cat in Chester
Went chasing down Cow Lane
Past Lightfoot Street and Pepper Street
Up Love Lane in the rain

By Cherry Road folk cheered it
Some tossed it chunks of cheese
Some chattered as it clambered
Up Paradise's trees

It coveted a chaffinch
To chew, near Feather's Lane
But chickened out…from Chester Zoo
A cheerful cheetah came

The cheetah came to check out
Old Chester's amphitheatre
Where Roman soldiers liked to see
Beasts versus gladiator

The Cheshire cat and cheetah
Became the choicest chums
And chose some nice Chorizo
To chomp on with their gums


6.England.
England's incredibly flat
A green and beige square chequered mat
With manors and hamlets and shires
And sheep looking sheepish and fat


7.St Edwards Church, Stow on the Wold
The admixed DNA of Roman, Norman, Saxon
Lies peppered with yew tree needles
Stone gargoyles prick their ears for dragons' hiss

The air is buttered with sun, hot on the crumbling stones
This is the Gate to Middle Earth, and here be demons

The heavy quern of the past grinds bones to dust
The trunks of the ancient yews, rise from a writhe of roots

Like driftwood, I've washed up in the graveyard
To rest on the grass. The names and dates
Of the dead are long forgotten

Rain's tears have driven them into Saturn's soil
The necessary removals making space
For the yet to come, Life's treadmill re-inventions



8.The Venice of the Cotswolds/ Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire
The River Windrush is a pygmy stream
Criss-crossed by toy-town bridges
Hobbit sized and quaint, Venice it ain't

Elegant as an orchid, a Japanese toddler
Strokes the water smiling
As if she was petting a cat

The gondolas are ducks with feathered hulls
Of Marks and Spencer's beige and camel colour
Six fluff ball ducklings dip down dappled water

Mother duck herds her tourist- dodging brood
With quacks of alarm and annoyance
‘You all go back to Mamma now, d'you hear? '
Comes a Kentucky drawl
Hobbit sized and quaint, Venice it ain't



9.Frog in your Throat?
Is your uvula writhing with pains?
Has your larynx just gone up in flames?
Frog spittle's the best for that cold in your chest
Sluicing phlegm from your two nasal drains


10.A Cure for Constipation
If you are a martyr to bowels
Do not strain till you're red in the jowls
Saltpeter will blast
The most stubborn impasse
Till your motion the ceiling befouls


11.The Pump Room Bath,2014
A glass of blood orange Bellini, £5.75
(An Italian classic with a citrus twist
A blend of blood orange puree
And chilled Prosecco

A glass of pump room sunrise, £3.50
A refreshing drink of light sparkling
Botanically brewed mandarin
Seville orange with grenadine
Mango and passion fruit juice

A glass of greenhouse martini £6.50
A mix of gin, orchard pig
Cloudy apple and elderflower juice
With fresh mint and cucumber

Seen consumed three streets away behind a car park:
One bottle of Buckfast
Possibly half-inched from a nearby store


12.Roman Aftermath
Honey-mellow yellow bath
survived the Roman aftermath
Where legions walked on sandaled feet,
in socks (and sandals) tourists bleat


13.Solstice Fire
I fed a sheep's jaw bone
To a Solstice Fire
How quick the flames rose up
And died away!

The jaw bone was hulled and prowed
Like a Viking longship
It went to its own Valhalla
Its little cremation
Wrapt in crimson shawls

I sit in my life's cold clothes
Their colours fading


14.Praise Song for Jessica aged 3
I'm working at my laptop in the morning
Quick moving as a cat she's there behind me,
Our household blessing

She laughs and taps my shoulders
Stretches and bends like a willow
How she loves to stretch!
Three years old with skin like liquid gold

Nana she says
Her voice, a tinkling bell.
I'm putty in her hands

There's a tiger in me
That's arrived since she's been born
If others chase or chide her
Huge invisible claws break through my fingers
My rage roars up within, a bush inferno
I'd walk on broken glass to keep her safe

My son's first born
Our joy, our little grasshopper
Our household blessing


15.The Queen of the Frost
The queen of the frost
Kept her heart tight on a choke-chain
Froze her feelings against thieves or knaves

The queen of the frost
Kept a lock on her vagina
Her eyes were barbs, her sorrows, open graves

The queen of the frost
Was born in a land of icebergs
Her mansion, built of Bibles, black and gold
‘Women born of Eve are made to suffer'
That was etched on her lintel, cruel and bold

The queen of the frost
Was dutiful, righteous, cold


16.The Biological Man
I knew a man who called himself
A biological weapon
Said he'd pointed, aimed
But having misfired once
No longer breech-loaded with shot


17.Don't Leave Before you Leave
Don't leave before you leave
The moon on your skin is here
Is now, is real
Quicksilver, soak it in

Don't leave before you leave
Is the wind not to your taste?
The ladybird, Otter and leaf
All breathe it in,
Inhale and exhale its zest

Too soon, the minutes drop and fall away
Behind, like a tenuous line of rusty railing
Time's ghostly gate on a hinge
And that gate failing


18.Swifts
An ecstasy of swifts
Delirious in flight
Wheel and re-wheel the lawn
Neighbours all,
Not pausing to gossip once

The larch stirs only
The utmost tips of her fingers

On a half blown rose
A butterfly alights
Clapping its powdery wings
A white applause

A spider's flimsy shawl
Snags a passing fly
In its poisonous silks

Mountains rise like a wall
That the sky peeps over, wan.

The sun's still-born today
Has forgotten it seems to live

Like clockwork out of control
In a trance, the swifts wheel on


19.The Commonwealth of Fairies
Every seven years they say
On the longest day of all
The Commonwealth of Fairies meet
For a bite to eat and a ball

Where the air is frisky and clear they meet
By Callander's secret bens
They carry the Fairy flag on high
The fees from far flung glens

The trowies on backs of selkies come
From the windy Northern Isles
And Thomas the Rhymer gallops up
With the Elf Queen wreathed in smiles

Brownies dine with chattersome trolls
Kelpies whinny and neigh
The Gaelic banshees keening howl
Keeps human folk at bay

Every seven years they say
On the longest day of the year,
The King of the Cats on magic paws
Approves the Commonwealth's Lear and laws
And after a supper of hips and haws
The strange Host disappears.


20.Ajar
I know of a gate which opens
Into the country of air

No passport is needed
All customs must stay behind

Pass through to that country
That strange republic of air
Of the nothing, the
The pail mist rising

Enter and leave no tread
By metamorphosing


21.The Toad in the Lane
He squats there, amber,
Ancient, gnarled and knotted
An antique knob of timber
Wearing a grin at the froth
Of fireflies, flitting

The toad at the lane's end
A sylvan sage, just sitting


22.Going to Brazil
‘I'm going to Brazil, ' my brother said
‘For good, and I won't be back.'

Mother sat at the table, polishing cutlery
Her lips were crimson red,
The cherry choice

She'd removed her engagement, wedding, eternity rings
Not wishing to spoil them, cleaning
Her eyes hardened. The lips pursed in a line

His announcement froze the moment
Ice cracked the family surface

Under the table, piranhas circled and snapped
The cup she was drinking from held a red smudge
Like the kiss she wasn't going to give him as goodbye



23.Pity the Man
Pity the man who has sold his field into bondage
For he has traded birdsong and meadowsweet
Corn gold and moth flight, for tarmac and brick
And a boy scrawling paint from a tin
On the side of a wall


24.Roots
I never met my grandfather alive
A Master Mason, high in that chosen cult

Drunk, he wrote songs and sang them
Made thirteen children, enemies and friends
Sober, he ran a croft and haulage business

I meet him I think in the dark. We pass as shades
Cuttings from the same rough, peaty roots

Shake us, the clay from the Highland line
Will not dislodge

His funeral was Masonic, dug in by the Brotherhood
Word, handshake, nod, and the churchyard fit to burst
With bare-head mourners

Men said that when he sang
The wheeze of asthma left him.
The stars forgot to turn
Wives forgot their wedding vows and wished.


25.So You Drew the Short Straw?
So you drew the short straw?
What'll you do with it?

Mend a hole in a boot
Carry a spark from the fire
Use it to package fruit
Feed the cow in the byre?

Add to a mouse's nest
Bolster a beggar's bed
Cushion a fowl's rest
Plump out a scarecrow head?

Everything has its use
Make of it what you can
Everything has its use
Can you think of a better plan?


26. Let Go
Let go of the clutter, the paraphernalia
The dusty detritus of days
They have lost their lustre, their worth
Their power to get under your skin

Let go of the world's opinions
Let in the huge word empty

Breathe in,
Breathe out
Breathe in


27. Après Retreat
I leave behind the veggie meals
Our pudding, main, and starter
The midges that are everywhere
It's in the midges ‘charter
To bite all visitors to bits
Wherever skin is bared
I leave behind the tofu
God! No matter how prepared
It lies upon the plate
And it pretends that it is chicken
Or pork, or fish, or anything
But it's still jellied knitting
I leave behind the loch, the birds
For those I'll truly ache
But as for the cuisine? Bring on
The drizzled salmon steak