Of Flowers, Felines, Fiddlers Et Al (15 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1.Over the Railway Sleepers

Travelling south, I rise out of myself
A stone leaving mud

A woman old as a walnut husk
Slowly draws a flask from a battered bag
Tips two wraps of sugar, a dribble of milk
Into a plastic cup that smells of linoleum

A heron sails over Montrose
Stilt-walker legs tucked up like tent poles

Red haired Ayrshire cattle
Slump, abandoned sofas, in a field of tares

Poppies and meadowsweet simmer in the heat
In a civic park, rustic goalposts face the ghosts of goals

Lopped trees stand marooned in green
Where mowers circling blades cut Celtic swirls

Daisies polka-dot a lawn
A turtle dove sits on a TV aerial
Tuning in to hissing football stories

The skinniest horse in Scotland
Crunches a nettle in a field of hard times

In a field of young green corn
A roe deer raises its head to watch the train

A black crow rows its hull through blustery trees
Like cheering bystanders
Beeches welcome a sudden influx of swifts

At Perth, a hind on delicate horn hooves
Picks her fastidious way by the shingly river
The river flashes bronze by her matt fawn flanks

Silver lady birch tree is stirring a soup of flies
Stirling arrives not speaking of Bannockburn.
It’s midgie season.

A climber with cliff-bitten knees
Is swatting his ears. A wire hangs from his ear
Drip feeding a musical balm

2. Thunder
Cracking her seeds, squirrel’s eats twitch-hear
The nearing thunderstorm in brooding heat
Sky’s heart is blood, darkening after a bruise

3. Fallen Angel
The girl-child held her father’s favour constant
Fixed as the pole star
Her brother, the scarecrow
Flapped his arms in the cross of his sister’s shadow
Titbits, dainties, praise...She feasted well.
Beloved, in a glut of glory

And so he stole the doll
Took it up to the dark bog past the crooked tree
At the edge of the stand of oaks
Buried it there in the muck
Pressing the steel nails of his boot
Onto its spoiled face
Driving it into the suck of the black mire
Like the bones of a fallen angel

4. Two Cafetieres, one Glass, one Steel? / Barney and Babs
You do realise you’re transparent?
Always on show, even down to the dregs
Objects like you- I use the word advisedly-
Give coffee a bad name.

Where’s the mystery? Where’s the je ne sais quoi?
When you’re full, you’re smug.
Half full, you’re begging for pity or attention.

Look at me! Look at me!
Your heart’s on your sleeve
You’re an air-head, an air head
Waiting for something to fill you
Not a single independent thought

Well, don’t look at me for excitement.
I stew in my own juice. I’m a recluse
I could be plotting or pining.
You won’t catch me whining
Nothing betrays what’s quietly fermenting.
Look at you, weeping condensation
From every pore

Furthermore I’m heavier than you
Intellectually speaking,
You’re light-weight as Irn Bru

Your grounds are gritty
Your general outlook’s shitty
But...given your elegant lid
You’d fit very well in a scene
From Sex in the City.

5. Dhanakosa June
Dhanakosa June
Hungry ghosts stalking mint lambs
Dreams of dragon cream

6. Cobweb
A spider’s cobweb
The last word in flycatchers
Insect’s winter noose

7. Bolt Hole
A mouse’s bolthole
Underground cat aid shelter
Full of summer fear

8. Chopsticks
Swallow on a wire
Tail feather’s tucked together
Two chopsticks resting

9. Three Balquidder Haiku

Scooped by a giant hand
Terrified frog leaks water
Not from the small pool

Calluses on dew
Young grass under old feet
Rising sap of June

Bull-rush sonata
Leaf look-alike jumps upwards
Small brown air-born frog


10. The Naming of Flowers
Beggarticks, bear’s breech & little mouse-ear
Fiddleneck, dewberry, Sweet Cicely
Cherryplum, mooncarrot, mint, Marjoram
Quince, Creeping Jenny & Black Bryony

Bogmyrtle, Tom Thumb, wolfsbane, adderstongue
Monkshood, Sweet Alison, Thumbleberry
Gipsywort, Looking glass, thyme, pennyroyal
Tancy & Teasel, mousetail, rosemary

Sneezewort & foxglove & glory of snow
Deergrass & dragon’s teeth. Belladonna
Ghost orchid, weasle’s snout, sweet Rose of Sharon
Bridewort an birdsfoot, Wild Angelica

Bedstraw & bulrush, moonwort, Blue eyed Mary
Rusty-back, violet, & sweet pimpernel
Enchanter’s nightshade & goldilocks buttercup
Blinks, ragged robin & Highland harebell

11. The First White Hair
What wiped the colour from his first white hair?
The mouth, drying with fear perhaps
The heart, breaking at a latch-click
Or the day when the first word tripped
From his tongue, and couldn’t find its meaning

12. Conversation with a Dead Brother
I was always drawn to the glen that you grew up in
Like a sheep, snagged on a wire.

Half a century before we met.
Weren’t you curious? Didn’t you want to know?

Canada blanked old shames and secrets out
Offered a gold horizon, rebirth, rebranding

Maple sweet, great bear of a Redwood brother
Your hug could block out blizzards
Your footprints walked too soon to the Lodge of Silence
Where mine will dog you when my last snows fall


13. Fiddler in the Mall
Hurrying, scurrying, round the shops
Crowds go hunting for hats or tops
Emptying out the family coffers
On footwear, hardware, and bargain offers
Searching for health and beauty aids –
Trainers, stickers, or razor blades
Jewellery, perfume, or toddlers’ toys
Joggers, jigglers, girls and boys
Stood astounded in Union Square
When a fiddler played in the entrance there
Till bobbin about like a dolphin’s pillow
In an Orcadian strip the willow
Shopper and strollers joined the dance
Linking arms in a rhythmic trance
Pensioners, children, in-betweens
In t-shirts, leggings, and torn blue jeans
Denim-skirted or business-suited
Barefoot girls and the leather booted
Joined in the music one and all
When the fiddler played in the shopping mall.

14. Feline Matters
The cat thinks cat, speaks cat, lives in a cat-like way
Tits die so cat might keep itself alive
It only lives if it can catch its prey.

Cat pulls birds from the table to survive
It dozes like a dullard through the day
But dusk sees all cat’s skills and lusts revive.

Under night arches cat’s black shape will pour
Like some small panther. It’s a midnight beast
Where deadly nightshade drops its wicked spore

It kills and is not shriven by the priest
Killing is both its joy and its birthright
Bloodletting does not scare it in the least

The cat thinks cat, speaks cat, lives in a cat-like way
Tits die so cat might keep itself alive
It only lives if it can catch its prey.

15. Foot Jive
Trainers, sneakers, sandshoes, tap shoes
Clogs and crocs, slip-ons and flat shoes
Platform soles and thigh high boots
Pumps that skip to drums and flutes

Jesus sandals, soft shoe shufflers
Furry boots for days with mufflers
Velcroed, backless, buttoned, zipped
Open-toed flip-flop, steel-tipped

Plastic, rubber, crocodile skin
Shoes with straps around the shin
Shoes that point like ballet pumps
Meet the world with clacks and thumps