English Poems From The Abbot O Unreason Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Death: A Chaucerian Rondel
I wish that I could share this day with you
My dear, but Death snatched you away so young
A ballad that was beautiful, half sung

If I had known your years would be so few!
The Autumn leaves glow in the bleary sun
I wish that I could share this day with you

The grave divides us, too deep to pursue
Death is the fate awaiting everyone
My missing one, my love, my much mourned son
I wish that I could share this day with you


Cat Attack: Inspired by a Clogyrnach (Welsh form)
garden birds are entertaining
robin, with his red breast flaming
our cat strikes. Rips breast, rends vest
tiny songster dying


3 Wee Shorties
The owl and the pussycat went to sea
The pussy was suffering with PMT
The owl said, ‘Nothing to do with me.'
And cut her adrift on the Baltic Sea

Mary Mary, quite contrary
Ran away with an antiquary
Who traded her in for a blue canary
A packet of fags and a rich equerry

Jack & Jill went up the hill
They met a Diplodocus
Jill whipped out her magic wand
And turned him to a crocus


The Owl: A Two Stanza Mondo
Why did the owl watch
me, that winter night of snow,
did it have something to tell?

It was silent, mute,
like a Sybil of the woods
out of the dreaming darkness.


Photo-Jogs
I stand by the village green
where you captained the football
and the cricket team

a born athlete, champion golfer,
singer, father, hunter
skilled with rod and gun
grandfather, uncle, brother

time, like Autumn,
blew away leaves of your youth,
young manhood drifting into blankness

father, I hung on your every word
when you died, I was a shocked lark
circled by black flies

now I see you in your cricket whites
young, handsome, smiling
out of a photo

you could have been anything
the old story…big family
need to work kicked learning into the rough

now the grave stoppers you
stills the music pouring from your throat
the snow embraces you in the frozen earth

the past plays in my head,
forsaken memories stand in my mind
like floating gravestones
I see you polishing the filigree
on your shotgun
tramping the heath
skimming the sliding river with your rod

again I feel the sun on my face
the crackle of heather and moss on my bare soles
as I hurry to keep up
the birks like prayer clouds waving in the heavens

you taught me to love silence
to court solitude, that great healer
the balm of a glen at dusk


The Room
I helped him flit.
Small sofa, chairs, a table, single bed
All in situ. Affordable. A bijoux kitchen,
Plain, but squeaky clean

He was over the moon
Fresh start. High as a kite on happiness
Room to park his belongings, be himself.

Across the corridor, a flat taped off
Deep cleaning in progress

On the q.t. I checked out the neighbour's address
A recent murder. A vulnerable young girl
Not streetwise, befriended a gang of three
Things soured. A flashpoint

Tortured, beaten, ear, legs, breast and head
Hacked off. Wrapped in a bin bag, a curtain,
Sealed with sticky tape, a macabre parcel
Stuffed in a cupboard by her drinking pals

She was a farmer's daughter,
Phoned her dad each day
Worked as a volunteer to help the homeless
Lamb to the slaughter
To tell, or not to tell?
Why tarnish the excitement of the flitting?
Is it the fault of the place?

In the Cathedral close by
A Sister,59, was killed
By the Anti-Christ's henchman
A former altar boy who worshipped karate killers

Again, I wonder
Is it the fault of the place?
Everyone has to die somewhere


Villanelle in a Graveyard
Horse chestnuts tumble roundly on the ground
Winter's approach is icy in the air
And clear and precious is the thrush's sound.

Beside the grave, a kind of peace I've found,
Three caskets filled with ash lie in this lair
The absent are still present all around

Now Lochnagar with glittering snow is crowned
The whispers of the dead swirl everywhere
Memories rise like echoes from the drowned

A distant churchbell rings, far but profound
Across an adjacent field, a leaping hare
Springs lightly with a powerful, fleeting bound

This is an ancient anchorage, dykes surround
The measured plots. Their portals are threadbare
Here, flesh and spirit meet, stir from each mound

And grief is driven off, that grim hellhound
This Shangri-la, where evening, like a prayer
Brings darkness, gently. I turn from the ground
Leaving the quiet ones to slumber there


Storm Damage
Storm Frank hit Ballater in 2015
A sunny day. I'd visited the village,
Stood on the brig that crossed the Cambus o May,
Watched the Dee rear up, but shrugged it off.
Went home just as the rain began to spit

The heavens darkened, tipped a deluge down
Appalled, I watched the news
Part of the A93 was washed away
Abergeldie Castle teetered on the brink
Caravans from Ballater's Caravan Park
Were floating down the rampant, raging river

The brig I'd stood on, now was wrung and wrecked
Buckled and battered like a child's trashed toy

Melting snow had joined torrential rain
Ballater's golf course, drowned
The Dee came boiling into streets,
Invaded homes, sheds, living rooms, and shops
Half of the village, under four feet of water
Caravans floated splintered on the waves
Forty were missing, others wrecked by the flood

In Ballater,307 homes and 60 businesses
Stood up to their mids in the cauldron of the spate

Part of the road to Braemar, swept off, destroyed.
Storm Frank brought with it trauma and destruction

Eight years later, I surveyed the scene.
My aunt's house was a stone's throw from the bank.
It's been abandoned, owner not insured

Windows rotten, panes cracked, garden, a jungle
The house left to the mercy of time and tide

I remember the garden swing
The poppies, heather, peat stack, curling smoke
My dead aunt sipping tea from a flowery cup


Hosting
my guests were late
so I ate


Associations 2
rose-red-blood-fire-flame and anger
black-death-evil-shadow-night
fear-ghost-mist-shroud-crone-a stranger
sun-gold-barley-honey-light

winter-ageing-snowfall-chill
spire-knife-clock hand-stalagmite
green-moss-mushroom-atom bomb
drench-rain dripping-seagull flight

elegance-a cobweb-Geisha
power-thunder-boiling river
feather-swan-a ballerina
warlock-magic-spinal shiver

singer-mellow-lullaby
hourglass-time goes slipping by


The Inward Eye
I boldly go where no man's gone before
imagination fuels my enterprise
transporting me to havens in the mind
I blink, switch on a Highland glen's sunrise

I settle down to view my inner screen
now I'm a child, I wade a shallow pool
wearing the amber anklets of the stream
warm summer, but the shining waves are cool

no golden daffodils flesh out the dark
the monitor that is my inward eye
in solitude, brings up forget-me-nots
trout, heather, wheeling eagles in the sky

A Matter of Time
My father's life was governed by the clock
His every act was tailored to its chime
Throughout our house the constant sound, tick tock

His daily routine left no room for shock
He measured off each little piece of time
An hour became another building block

And when Death came, he heard His bony knock
My father reached to grip that void sublime
Within a week, each household clock had stopped
As all his earthly burdens, silent, dropped


Rain
The rain fell in terrifying sheets
Drowning the windscreen
Obliterating the world

Even the darkness of night
Was washed into oblivion

Cataclysmic, a taste of Armageddon
Water flexed its muscles
Brushed us off like flies