Of Popes, Fur Coats And Tubas (42 Poems) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

1. Marilyn Munro's Fur

It swung from her back like a promise -
Presidents, gangsters, hunted it in packs;
Little furry pelts, stitched up with thread
And moonlight, reeking of sex and Chanel.
I wonder, did it get a decent burial,
That second skin she shed before she lay
Under the cut and thrust of politics?
Did the hounds lick her, falling?
Did they bay?


2.The Shy Poem

Do you write many poems? I asked
One crept out recently, came his reply
As if it had sneaked out of the house
Carrying its slippers in its hand
So as not to disturb the neighbours

And it intrigued me this shy one, this quiet one
That didn't bang its drum
Or jump up and down to be heard
As I never learned what it said
Or where it crept off to, out of the workshop door.

Maybe it went to Mull to sing with whales
Maybe its knitting sweaters up in Shetland
Maybe it's thumbing its nose at poetry readings
Just sitting there being a poem
Just sitting there

I think of it often, shy poem that crept away
I would like it to come back
Sit in the middle of the circle
And explain itself


3.Gangster- Gulls

A Klu-Kux-Klan of gulls
Savage Sopranos, hit-men of the habour
Have put a cloud of starlings in a stushie.

Aberdeen gulls are fearless
They will casually slice a cod's head
Slick's a guillotine.
Their yellow wellies
As lurid as Doris Day's coiffure
.
Their mating call's a cross
Between a foghorn and a saw
It carries the ache of the ocean
Feeling the weight of its ancient waters
Turning round in its fishy bed.
SS Aberdeen gulls, storm troopers
Of no mean city


4.Pet Corner

A seagull sits on a branch, pretending to be a hawk
Its back is zebra-striped by a shady beech

Three donkeys crop the cropped grass into mud
Nine rabbit families swelter in their hutch
Trying to wriggle out of their furry pants.

A ring of toddlers is putting a brave face
On being a target board for a charging goose.

Llama shares her pent house with two goats
Rabbit and guinea pig in communal hutchery
Are contemplating bestial debauchery.

Pot bellied pig, a tubby, dandruffed porker
Slumps to a standstill, stuffed by dreams of buns
A hen like Noah's ark, moors in the sun.

A boy in nappies barely off the breast
Giggles an coos, amazed at fur and fin.


5.Milk is Always White: Cha-Nam Beach, Thailand

Thin brown fishermen
Garish ragged shirts
Nets flung on the sea
Some fish are caught Some fish escape

Thin brown massage women
Skin like seasoned teak
Hoist torn parasols along the beach

Some trade is caught
Some trade escapes
Milk is always white
Though tugged from different cows

Yen, dollar, sterling, baht,
Money is money
Is food
Is drink
Is clothes


6.When will the Rain Come?

When will the rain come?
The wooden doorknob creaks in its iron groove
The summer rose opens its dragon mouth
Foxgloves droop parched heads across a fence
Lentils dream of water in the pot
Too hot for walking, floppy laces trail


7.The Mortgaged Moggy

There once was a tom cat called Wills
Whose hunting showed marvellous skills
On a trip up the Niger, he captured a tiger
And sold it to pay off his bills


8.A Wasted Life

A cat in the high Pyrenees,
smoked cannabis weed if you please
When the moggy was stoned,
very blanket she owned
Was invaded by legions of fleas


9.Stars and Stripes

Bonfire season. Dry logs cackle like witches.
In Autumn's pyre twigs sigh, give up the ghost

Summer bounty's past its sell- by date
Frost crackles across the lake

Where the striped badger snuffles in his set
Hunchback hedgehog turns into a conker.

In the gloved and booted night
Fireworks soar like shooting stars of light
Pumpkins leap off supermarket shelves

Guy Fawkes turns in his grave
Uncle Sam's cheerleaders whoop it up
Trick or treating down our Old World's lanes.


10.Undergrowth

Breaking cover, owl unwraps his wings
Bat drops from his hanger
The eyes of the wood gleam slitted and slatted
Through twigs of half light,
Briers of concealment.

Fox walks into his paw prints
Nosing the air aside like a delicate trowel
Claws carve and curve
A vole is being eaten in the undergrowth
Black velvet lined with red
Spider descends his ladder making a sheer dropp


11.On the Festive List

Half a pound of brussel sprouts
Half a dozen mince pies
Small carton of cream
Goodwill to some men

Six Xmas crackers
a bottle of sherry
a large trifle
a truce in family hostilities
the queen's speech

Arty-farty cards for very important people boxed assorted
Asda for everyone else and a blue robin in a bare tree

Ding dong merrily the tills
Give one lucky beggar 20p
Six lords a-leaping through the tabloids


12.Tanka in the Trossachs

Shearing the dreich days
Like a scythe man, Winter comes
Sweeping old fields bare

Leapfrog Spring can reinvent
Halcyon highlands anew


13.Tsunami, Galle, Sri Lanka, Boxing Day,2004

The roads are rubbled.
The pitiless monsoon rain
Runs down mens' faces.
Even their tears taste salt.
A car with its lights punched out
Lies upside down in Galle's market square
Torn ribbons of saris, sarongs,
Are bloodied decorations round each tree

Hanging for dear life
By a thread, by a fingernail.
From a floating rooftop

Heads of families bob like cocktail cherries
Fishing nets wrap tuk-tuks in a stranglehold.

No-one's collecting the fare
No- one's counting the catch

A child is carried ashore
His eyes are filled with shards of sea debris
The sort that clings to sandals on the beach
The sort you shower off before the buffet

Before the lobster's hoisted in, showing its dripping claws.
Bodies lie like virgins
They will never be touched again in a lustful way

They are wrapped and quiet, laid out in a hall
Waiting to be identified and claimed.
And who's going to pay for this?

Somebody, or something should certainly pay....
Sunbathers wedge in trees like dripping fruit bats
A market stall is fifty fathoms deep
A teenage office worker's brown plump leg
Protrudes from a fallen palm.
Her mobile phone's
Forgotten how to bleep.
Where trains go loop-the-loop
Where boats sail into churchyards, spewing fish
Where the sea sails down the streets
Like it God-damn owns the place
Where renting a room in a posh five star hotel
Buys no-body special favours when the sea gate-crashes the party.
Acts of God do not discriminate
Everyone killed, the strong, the sick, the weak.

Normal service cancelled till further notice
The earth wobbled,
The compass cracked
The town clock's hands stood still
Now they sit round the table,
Guests in their own home
Hunger, Want, Disease
Terror, Destruction, Dismay,
Sucking their thumbs and rocking
Till foreign waiters bring the aid tureen
And the long ladle counting out the drops
All, all, has gone to wrack
Businesses, brides, lives,
Nothing can dream the back.


14.A Scottish Soldier

By joining up he journeyed far
There are no jobs in Highland glens
Other than B & B or bar
He travelled first class into war...
Korean and Malayan tours
There, leeches sucked his Scottish blood
There's no iced tea or petit fours
Where soldiers die in monsoon mud.

Demobbed, he raised a family
Peace pumped contentment through his veins
Until a slug of Scotch would raise
The spectres of his old campaigns
How, all night long, alone, entire
Ten comrades killed by friendly fire
He had to guard.

Who'd think the dead
Would lie unburied in his head?
For 50 years, forever sealed
The horrors of the battlefield.


15.Dusk at the Colosseum

Dusk deepens in the gloomy Colosseum;
Two feral cats square up to hiss and spit
Descendents of Queen Cleopatra's gift
To Rome, a city suckled by a wolf.

Fifteen feet long, a lumbering crocodile,
Scale-armoured, creeps far from his native Nile
His queer eyes blink. Before, a pool of dust
Is stained with blood, like powdered, drying rust.

The biggest abattoir man ever built
Claws pulled, still bares a fang to the cold wind;
Here, terror reigned. Here seas of blood were spilt.

Fifty thousand Romans cheer and rise...
For this Egyptian god.
His half-moon eyes
Flicker acknowledgement.
Where is his priest Shaven and oiled, to bring his daily feast?
Today, the meal is moving...leather shod
It nears. Sun glints on helmet and on sword.

The old arena fills with moon and night,
Centuries blur. Nothing is black nor white;
Everything shrinks. The ancient crocodile
Becomes a lizard. Stone-faced Caesars smile.


16.Overlooking the Circus Maximus

Church bells from iron mouths pontificate;
Before the world an old Pope lies in state.
The steps, like an Aeolian harp, resound
With echoes from the teeming crowds around;
Lugubrious and jolly, short and tall
Pour down the steps, a human waterfall
All hailing taxis, haggling in the shops.
A human mule, an ancient matron flops
Into a chair, bags dropped, to sip a glass
Of wine, and watch frenetic pilgrims pass.

Here's noise! Here's colour Titian never knew!
A frothing fountain, fifty shades of blue!
Here's life in technicolour, strident, shrill!
Here's mobile phone, no nightingale's soft trill!
Here's ambulances' screeching, police harangue!
Here's football flags, a hip-hooraying gang!
Here is no place for footsore, homesick Ruth
But surely, as the marble Mouth of Truth
Bit off the hand of liars, death in Rome
Must be a bubble bursting in the foam

Each flower preaches...daisy, violet, rose
To seize the moment. All too soon, we close.


17.Death of a Pope

He has crossed the threshold of Hope,
The Pole, John Paul II,
The Great Communicator. The Peoples' Pope.

At Easter, the blessing stuck in his throat -
A silent lesson on Suffering, a gain, a loss
Jesus did not climb down from the cross.

God's athlete ran out of time,
Age and sickness holding the finish line
Shepherd of a cosmopolitan fold,
He captained a billion souls in their Ship of Faith -
Some disembarked, the course too hard too hold.

Prayers are of little use, though soft and sweet,
Where Aids cuts down the young like fields of wheat,
Where yet another plate upon the table
Brings hunger when there's nothing left to eat.
London to Lagos,
Baghdad to Blairs,
Calcutta to Krakow,
Mourners queue where Michelangelo
Mirrors the human drama down below -
Man reaching out to link with the Divine.

John Paul lies still, an island robed in red
Around him, a weeping river, millions flow.

18.At the Zoo: Bio Parco, Rome

Wild asses eat grasses where lechers make passes,
In Rome this is part of the scene.
Though massaging its rump gives a camel the hump,
To a monkey, it's peaches and cream.

A goose senorina's a white ballerina
In pumps and a feathery tutu ‑
With a wing in the air looking devil may care
See her bidding a lizard adieu!

A big bison shocks with his Rasta dreadlocks
Not as chic as the snake in its den ‑
The elephant hoses dust over its toeses
And does it again and again.
So go to the zoo if you've nothing to do!
You can contemplate tigers a-snoring;
And if you ask why, they will rudely reply
They think you're incredibly boring.


19.Castlegate Gull

A large white Castlegate gull has perched on a pillar box
Right above the slot where the letters go.
Saturday morning, urgent mail to post,
And he's sitting there like Napoleon's hat,
His back hunched up, his beak a Cossack's sabre.

He could be a sunflower growing out of a pot,
He could be a white nude painted by Matisse -
He's neither. He's a Castlegate gull
Perched on a pillar-box.
Exchanging glares, we test each other's mettle;
No surrender! he's a belligerent gull,
With military epaulettes,
His beak is in fine fettle.


20.Tumbleweed

Rolling along like tumbleweed, old blue skies roofed the day;
Thistledown brother, blown by squalls to Canada's Great Lakes
Neither Age nor Death can even begin to budge
That time we fished in Lake Ontario,
Our bare toes dangling four feet off the pier,
Not two cross words between us, one big smile.


21.Sunday at Sainsbury's

The smell of steaming coffee fills the aisles;
A diner feeds her money to the pay-point;
The pouting shop assistant sucks her lip;
Granny and toddler munch their toast triangles;
A plasma screen fills with a swirl of fruit.

The waiting tables do not choose their guests -
Fried eggs lie down like lambs on the white plates,
And all the while the quiet snow falls down.


22.St Andrew's Cathedral Ruins: March 2005

A bed, a blanket, a bowl; the luxury of a soul -
I'm always drawn to spaces such as these.
Sky raises birds aloft like praising saints,
Wind's whispering its strange epiphanies...
Five silent gulls perch on a cloister wall;
Here, years have ticked away like rosaries.
An orange crab shell lies beside a door,
Stone arches span the grass, Kabbalah trees.

Here I'm invisible, do not exist,
A barely breathing figure in the mist.
A hallowed place, where swallows take their ease -
I'm always drawn to spaces such as these


23.The Jewish Ghetto

I was trying to read the Italian for
'Where's the station? '
When over a street I noticed Hebrew script.
Campo Ghetto Nuovo, Cannaregio

A Hanukkah lamp was lit in an old stone.
There were no tourists, traders, flower-sellers ‑
Paint peeling, a wall rose up, flayed like a skinned horse.

A synagogue's doors were firmly bolted shut;
There was graffiti, but no sign of life.
The green canal looked deep as ancient hurts
Not given voice, closed up and festering;
A place of absences, injustices marooned
Outcast from the gay lagoon, its vibrant riches.

The Furies sent the former tenants packing ‑
A one-way trip to Belsen, Dauchau, Auschwitz
Slime climbs the steps to doors not used for years;
If stones could weep these walls would run with tears.


24.Mr & Mrs Blackbird Visit the Neighbours

They have brought these gifts to our woods
A table, a boat, a chair

He is not a gift, he is lost

Who told?

The crow. He says they keep birds in cages

How does he know?

He has seen them, and more,
Last autumn, nailed to a post A dead hawk's wing

But they like us, dear.
When we sing, they smile and nod.
Look there, on the woodland grass
They have left a tyre, and a small white looking glass

We need no glass to show our woods are fair
We need no tyre to travel the realm of air
Crow says that when men come, they come like rain
Unstoppable. Their coming will bring pain.


25.Economic Migrants

Three deer flee through cactus
Braving the hot sun in the red desert
The grass ahead so sweet


26.From Here to There

From a train window, I observe him,
A distant horse.
He's going nowhere
Chewing a mouthful of clover
Whisking flies from the pursed mouth of his arse.

I close my eyes.
This stallion fills the carriage
Travelling with me into thought's black tunnel,
The train smells lush as meadows,
Sweet as new-forked hay.


27.Torpedo Rolls

Over the soup tureen,
Making small talk with a stranger
A stab in the dark

I found he'd been a sailor in the war
Raised my harpoon,
Thinking to catch a whale of a time
Tell me of the exciting things you've seen.

He looked discomfited.
We paused off the Seychelles
They looked quite nice. We never went ashore
We refuelled other shipping, swabbed the decks
War was a dreadful bore.
From stern to prow, oh how our ship would gleam!

He broke a torpedo roll, refilled his plate
Quietly chewed and didn't spill one drop.
Then used his bread to mop it squeaky clean.


28.Tars

On rolling sea legs sailors hit the town
Tars bound for bars to sink a beer or two
A girl slides down a pole who'll quench their fire
Throws them the old line 'You look good in blue'


29.Man on a Swing

Man on a swing.
Paedophile, Lover? Drifter? Abandoned father?

Tap him. Maybe he's dead
Maybe a Polaroid dreamt him
Maybe he's stuffed.

No, he's five years old
Inside that grown up suit
Summer moved on and left him,
Damaged fruit.


30.Hammered

Friday Football over, five young men get hammered
Nail their flag to the mast, four sheets to the wind.

The wind cuts like a knife.
The top and the tail of life
For them is only this:
It's a sore wrench to go home,
Play with the bairn, undress and screw the wife.


31.A Long Stretch

The city prison stands, a stone Bastille
Over the river leaping down below
Lags toss in sweaty bunks
Two hours to slop out

On a mid-stream stone
A cormorant unshakes its neck
Extends its tarry wings
Black gown and beak
Having a long stretch


32.Clowns

Clowns are like owls, too-wit too-woo
With staring eyes that cut in two
I do not like a clown. Do you?

They're fake dissemblers.
When they fight
It's just to give us all a fright
I think real claws come out at night
Too-wit too-woo


33.How to Preserve a Legend

Take one Spartan, a sword, a lion
Boil the Spartan 13 hours in the slow heat of battle
(Thermopylae, preferably)
Once dead, leave him to turn a grisly shade of mauve.
Eyes may be painted on or inset jewels


34.It'll soon wash out

After the screams
Wrung from the white girl behind the gas works
The red stains on her dress
Were laid out to dry in a court
Before a press-ganged jury

It was just a game, he said
She didn't run
And hasn't she scrubbed up well?
Things just got out of hand
Only a bit of fun.


35.Carousel

The ride rises, the ride falls
The moon's sickly. The owl calls
Girl in short skirt, red lipstick, painted nails
Brown greasy hair pulled back in pony tail
Waits to be mounted, to be brought to bed
Love is not love with lies and falseness fed
He is the one? Ah, Sharleen, Joan and Gail,
He'll go with anything that isn't male
The ride rises. The ride falls
The moon's sickly. The owl calls


36.The Sale of the Cultural Icons

Who'll start the bidding for Baird's inventive powers?
For John Brown's sportsmanship?
For Bruce's heart?
Come, they're unique, they're real collectors' items!

Next under the hammer: Burns' poetic soul
Carnegie's philanthropy.
Glasgow's Hairy Mary, made for pleasure
The courage of Charles the First
Columba's piety
A Charles Rennie Mackintosh bowl.
A job-lot any patriot would treasure
There's a reserve on Mary Garden's voice.
It's been withdrawn, not having reached its target.
That's not a bid, it's an old corbie's croak
No takers then for Thomas Glover's shrewdness,
Kenneth Graham's wit, John Knox's faith,
Sir Harry Lauder's cheek, Chic Murray's jokes?
We'll throw in Lulu's luck, Queen Mary's beauty
We'll clear the decks, add Pinkerton's resolve,
Rob Roy's work ethic, Wallace's sword arm.
A slice of Dundee cake that's rich and fruity
Dolly the sheep! Sold to the man in the jumper
Greyfriars Bobby's lead
Goes to the lady in leathers, wearing studs.
The sale of the cultural icons is now over.
That unattended haggis must be exploded
It might be Bonnie Prince Charlie under cover.
All proceeds go to deciphering Ogham writing
(Picts have been sighted checking Holyrood's drains)


37.Resting Tubas

Tubas tire easily
Their respiratory tracts need frequent draining
Unplugged from their owner's mouths
Stoppers at ease, they drip with pleasure
Like redundant u-bends.
They soak up silence
Emit odd farts and parps
Between performances


38.A Falling Cow

A falling cow is an act of God
Aloe Vera butters no parsnips
Bores should be shaken not stirred
Two swallows do not make a vest


39.Poet's Picnic

I invited John Clare.
A rabbit sat under his tree
All through the afternoon
I saw it behind the bananas
Twitching its ears
Stuffing itself with verses
From Mr Blake

I bet you're jealous, Ted Hughes
I bet a rabbit never came to your picnic


40. Bird (Objet Trouve)

There is no joy in touching a brown, dead bird
You might as well stroke a coffin

I am no mortician to lay it out
No physician's care
Can lever wide the yellow seals of its eyes
Unset those chits of jet.

The hinged stilts of its legs
Drive five curved claws
A frozen clutch no sun can prize apart

This fledgling's gallows' bait
Its neck lolls to the side
A budding sonata, lopped.

I extend its pinions, an aborted flight
The engineering works, the engine's stopped.

It is docked in the brace of my hand
This feathered hull,
Wrecked by mistaking glass for a greener place

It is wearing its new school clothes
Its tail is a pleated skirt
Under its throat, a cream and fawn jabot
Nobody taught this blackbird how to die.
Hard lesson. Or soft perhaps as thawing ice

It lived as I wrote it
As I do, only a little

Now I have placed a stone on its lovely face
Laid it beneath the trees where its warm brothers sing
It will speak in whispers, whispers,
Under the feathery moon


41. Death of a Hen-Wife

Gripping the quilt
She turned to face the wall
Her brown hens cackled loudly
Needing grain


42. Holyrood

The average human crocodile stays a mere ten minutes
Then scampers off to forage in the fudge,
The Holyrood butter biscuits in the foyer.

This building's a toned, tanned schoolgirl with designer labels
Her parents sweated blood and tax to fund.

She's looking good
(And isn't that so important?
Image, appearance, a city cat-walk queen?)

Today, she opens her satchel, debates breastfeeding
Noxious emissions, beavers, health, horse passports
Outside the hard rain hammers her mascara.


43.The Tom Cat

Our Tom's the tiger of the street
He is a lord, no mangy cur
When he pads in on haughty feet
Our house is one enormous purr

His meow's mellifluous and sweet
Far richer than an Irish burr
And when he sniffs a fishy treat
Our house is one enormous purr

He's debonair. His manner's neat
So sleek and silky is his fur
When he walks in from midnight beat
Our house is one enormous purr

He sits enthroned on cushioned seat
His green eyes slit, they seem to blur
His bowl of happiness, replete
Our house is one enormous purr

Our torn cat, lewd and indiscreet?
Who'd dare to utter such a slur?
Keep your cat in if she's in heat!
Our house is one enormous purr

He likes to eat next door's dog meat
The cowed Dalmatian dares not gurr
There's not a tyke our tom can't beat
Our house is one enormous purr