Of Foxes, Crows And Artichokes (20 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Of Foxes, Crows And Artichokes (20 Poems)



1. Winter Fox

Out of a siding, the studious urban fox
Trots off in the furious rain
Too wet to decipher the runic spelling of claws.

The wind deadheads a hydrangea
A squirrel, padlocks his cache of nuts
Hedgehogs hug their navels in worsening weather

Corridors of brambles lead to the morgue of a tunnel
The fox's den, stuffed with bloodied leaves.
This is his terminal pillow.

In the bus-station toilet a sliver of icy soap
Sits by a dripping tap, awaiting a glove's removal

Clouds tussle with storm, their bearings afloat
Birdsong pierces the day, a cold keening
Fox is becoming intimate with a throat.


2.The Crucified Crow

The sky bent down to touch him,
Dead Crow nailed over the wheat,
(That silver tide down which the moonlight plunged.)

The crow did not exist beyond the crucifix.
Feathers, frayed from his saltire.
He hung, unwilling martyr,
Half-way between death
And the dew-cool dawn.

Two mornings he had helped
A new-born lamb out of its white coat.
The gun, stopped his disrobing.
Flies, drunk from feasting on his blood
Laid eggs to wobble in his open heart

Furtive as stolen kisses,
Rain fell on his frozen beak
Mouthing one last curse
At widow-maker world.


3.The Wedding of the Deer

Deer stepped from the skeletal woods.
Left their virginal freedoms
Went out onto the moor to meet their match.

They were the colour of warm tea
Soft bellied as Burmese girls.
Avoiding old tracks and the muffled
Thump of bullets, their bridegrooms
Swung sharp antlers, like incense bearers
Sweetening a temple.

The perfect place for deer and a stag to wed
Is a brooding slope high on the edge of nothing.
Stag on deer, a quivering tower of venison.

When the twined towers topple
Deer seeds stir in the dark.


4.The Toll Gate

One day, and that quite soon, I'll climb the Hill
Look back at the three spires of the village churches
Watch men at their work, observe clay chimneys,
Through oak trees lush and leerie
Growing smaller.

I envied them, those oak trees, local and sacred
Cheered them on in Spring, like a winning team
For they always welcomed me back when I dropped in
On a flying visit or just to ease my heart.
They peopled the summer landscape that was childhood,
It seemed my fate was tied up with their roots.
Their accents, leafy lisps, made honeyed hearing
That Druid grove, sun-speckled, halcyon.

Soon, I must pass the toll gate,
Shadows above are beckoning
A traveller trying to enter the eye of a needle
Pine needle, part and whole of the ancient woods.

How much mud will stick at the final reckoning?


5.The Artist's Dream Woman

In a primeval forest a woman lay nude on a sofa
(Though this is an artist's dream, the girl looks bored)
She stretches her hands to animals, sun, blue sky.
She's his mythical woman, born to be adored

Not a word of the rusty heater his model used
The tigers sniffing around, the bad cheques bouncing
The snake charmer's flute, though cute, could not defuse
The critics snapping like jackals, the tax man pouncing

And while he was dreaming and painting, her sultry skin
Flinched as mosquitoes hummed around her breast
Under the crimson lips, her skull started to grin
The sofa sagging beneath this French Mae West.

You can tell by the frozen pose, the words unsaid
He hoped she'd step from the frame and warm his bed


6.The Artichoke's Valentine's Card

The artichoke complained it had been stalked.
The Valentine card was its proof,
Arriving as it did, at the fruit and veg show

The kiwi refused to comment.
The raspberry declared no interest,
Stating the artichoke had all the allure
Of a rhino fart in a bathtub

The Brussels sprout confessed it was polygamous,
But was not a lover of artichokes per se

The carrot said it was pink, but currently celibate
The cabbage wore her heart on her sleeve, claiming
She only went on the boil for Wessex cauliflowers

The radish revealed the artichoke as a fantasist
The courgette accused the beetroot of necrophilia,
Of lying with a fallen Cox's pippin.

The spud said he was into S & M
Due to his long proximity with thistles

The pea confessed she'd popped her pod that evening
The whin-seed flashed, but only in the Fall.


7.Summer is I cumin in

Broccoli or chestnut? Cream of celery?
Carrot, coriander? Chicken stock or Brie?

Cauliflower, green pesto? Courgette, Emmental?
Parsnip, yellow pepper? Cumin or lentil?

Savoy Cabbage, Bacon? (That could do a week!)
Tomatoe and Spring Onion? Turnip boiled with leek?

Oh this summer cooking! Read what's on the tin
Toss it in your basket, put your apron in the bin!


8.Care instructions for 8 Left-handers

Prince Charles: hand wash only.
Tiberius: do not wring
Queen Victoria: starch the collar
Nietzsche: iron on high.
Lewis Carroll: full wash cycle
Paul McCartney: steam iron low
Albert Einstein: short spin only
Bill Clinton: tumble dry


9.Bingo Calls

Dirty Gertie, one more time,
Played Bingo on the Brighton line
Two fat ladies, bang on the drum,
Clickety clicked to Kingdom Come

Dirty Gertie's halfway there,
Up the winners' golden stair
Man alive, between the sticks,
Strange how some folk get their kicks


10.Cockney Rhyming Slang

After last night's Ruby Murray blew out through me Khyber Pass
I was Tom and Dick all down me Dinky Doos
When me Baker's Dozen asked me out, I had to say
'Alas I am too Boracic Lint to pay for booze.'

I still had some Bread and Honey owing to a China Plate
And I had to go and square the Duke of Kent
Took a Sherbet Dab to Putney, where a Dustbin Lid of eight
Stole the little bit of gelt I hadn't spent!


11.Assemblages

A spring of teals, a gang of elks, a parliament of owls
Assembled with a drift of swine, moorhens and other fowls
Beside a stud of sturdy mares, a sounder of wild boar
A sege of herons, walk of snipe, the world to explore
They met a cete of badgers, bench of bishops, rag of colts,
A wilderness of monkeys where the brindled muskrat bolts

A chattering of choughs arrived, a muster of peacocks
A rye of pheasants, herd of curlews, wearing their flight socks
A coveyfull of ptarmigan suggested they go home
A starlings' murmuration lead the leavers, via Rome

An exaltation of the larks took refuge in the sky
Malapertnesses of pedlars cried 'Good riddance! ' and 'Goodbye! '
So the assemblages of beasts went off their separate ways
The ferrets to their businessness, the dolphins to their bays.


12.Sun

Like a hung ladle
The summer sun drips slowly
A honey spoon's kiss


13.Willow

A willow plunges its wrists
Into the cut-throat water
My mouth is a bricked up fireplace
Sucking ash.


14.Tough Love

Some fathers are bitter grapefruits,
Rotten orchids
A man smashes his fist into his son's right ear
Calls it an act of love


15.Runic

A robin usurped the manuscript of morning
His scratchy feet etched runes across the moss
His twin eyes watched me scraping up the leaves
His bulbous puff of crimson paunch, ballooned
Under the lemony arch of rowan eaves

He made a chill day warm.
Slime-belly worms
Rose like smoke through the grass
To this flick tailed bobber, gone in a blink
Like a municipal tulip in a gale
Back through the bird-door fashioned by the wind


16.Silence

The latitudes of silence are becalming
The quadrille of ravens that perch
On my sinister shoulder, flap like flames

The slippage of days continues
Like the drool from a fool's mouth

Silence, though, is sherbet on the tongue
Dissolving melancholy. I no longer want
To emigrate from the world.
The anthill Of my thoughts quietly stills, its denizens
Curl up tight in separate cells.


17.Under the Sun

Under the sun a gouged cathedral looms,
Empty's a dry-docked liner, hugging echoes

A teenager turns a corner, wheeling a buggy
She is wearing headphones. The child screams, frantic.

In Novodevichnaya, Chekhov's silent
A Clydebank striker harangues a passing crowd

Flying an urban semaphore from a tree
A plastic bag flags up a roundabout

At a screening of The Madness of King George
Somebody's mobile rings in aisle three

A piano writes a concerto. Trees raise saplings.
A driver, parked in a lay-by watches cows.
He is Saint Anthony, patron saint of the Lost,
Finding Pan, his haunches sunk in fern

In Cairo a Pharaoh's make-up is restored
A soccer draw leaves goal-mouths unappeased


18.Tight-Rope Lover

I have never turned a tide,
Raised a Lazarus, painted a Buonarroti.

I have, however, walked
The tight-rope ladder from self to lover
Without a safety net
Like you, me, another


19.A Meditation

When I am still, the moon falls into me,
I become water.
Stars shine from my eyes.

An owl opens its wings,
Drifts from my empty heart


20.Vietnam

Rockets & mortar, artillery shell
Napalm & booby-trap, planes that dropped hell
Children of dust, refugees behind wire
War tunnels, ecocide, firearms for hire

Paddy-fields, fishing nets, conical hats
Boat people, pirates, sea-horses, fruit bats
Dog-meat & paw-paw, shark-fin,
Saigon Beer Coconut, cinnamon, bugs, muntjac deer
Hitch-hikers, back-packers, loos where you squat
Ancestor-worship, pagodas, kumquat
Bamboo, malaria, peach-blossom, plums
Dragon-fruit, myna birds, reed flutes & drums

Buddhas & lacquer ware, turtles & rice
Porcupines, scorpions, pythons, dried ice
Cholera, polio, cobra, monsoon
Leprosy, crocodile, stonefish, typhoon
Durian, lychee, ceramics & ticks
Leeches & rabies, bean-paste, incense sticks

Sweet & sour country of mangrove & palm
Pearl of the China Seas, gentle Vietnam

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