The Poem That Walked On Stilts Poem by Sheena Blackhall

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This poem can parade in street events
Be read at corporate functions after the hors d'oeuvres
It overlooks strange sights
It sees a heart bleeding among the reeds

Something wobbles behind a theatrical mask
A stand of thistles grow under a donkey's belly

At night the North Star rests on a chimney
Like a weather vane, or the tip of a minaret

Ideas fly by like geese
A glider becomes a hawk with a long shadow
Minnie Mouse is writing a suicide note

The poem on its wooden perch observes her
Words melt off a wall, graffiti blitzed by acid

Magpies are serving guests at a garden party
A farmer writes a cheque on a cow's side

Romanian music blends with a lawn mower
The Tiber remembers a Caesar's troubled birth

The word contermaschious is skipping through the ferns
Tea cups are chattering over buttered scones

A pig has a swag of washing for a belly
A vet is tilting a needle into a fox

Water shines, wild silk at the Linn of Dee
A delicious deciduous beech tree's breeding leaves

A woman is milking an orchard of its apples
Rain spits down the faces of traffic lights