English Poems From Young Quine Dreamin Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The Dictatorial Moon
Without so much as a by-your-leave
The moon appears in the sky

Every night it shoves the sun off its perch
Switches off the lights
Like a stern parent

Monsters? Claptrap!
It says. Shut your eyes
Time to recharge your batteries
You don't want to burn yourself out



The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The swirl of plastic waste and sludge
Dumped debris in the great Pacific
Is now three times as large as France
Destructive, lethal, parasitic

A curved 600metre tube
With dragging anchor, scoops the trash
It's shipped ashore, then brought to land
Recycled or burned into ash

The Ocean Cleanup project aims
To aid the climate change's fight
Like one small candle in the wind
Trying to make the darkness light


Things I learned this Week
Reading one poem spawns many another
Last night's owl is tomorrow's seagull
Sometimes a eulogy writes itself
I only use handbooks for halfwits
A pupil told me he wished he was white.
Henry VIII had open sores on his leg
Truncated trees make me sad
Thumbprints ruin a pristine page
Age has deformed my feet, a cruel sculptor

At the Chiropodist
Let's get to the foot of the matter
Age twists the bones of the feet like gnarled tree roots

I still think on my feet
But I'm not so keen on getting my feet wet,
Of dipping my toe into new experiences

After a day's slog,
Oh the relief to take the load off my feet!
Dead on my feet, I love to flop into bed
To watch a documentary or the news

I'm no innovator. I get cold feet at parties
I find my feet in solitary habits

In Summer I have itchy feet for a glen
A loch, a village between two hills

I always knew I'd have to
Stand on my own two feet

Nobody ever swept me off their feet
Until the chiropodist
With her bowl of water
Like Mary Magdalen
Knelt to bathe the dust of the day away


The Sea
The sea is a noisy washing machine
Sludgy, sandy and grey
It slops like a soiled toilet mop
A wolf tongue drooling spray
It clashes and rumbles like rusty tins
Its waves tumble over and smash
Drown, drown, drown, the sea god sneers
Menacing, ocean- crash
At night it's a glitter of ice-picks
Shards from a moon that broke
Attacking the cliffs and rock pools
That sea weeds throttle and choke
But sometimes it's calm as a looking glass
Smooth on the surface as silk
You'd never guess that beneath the sea
Sharks glide through its opaque milk


Laburnum
Laburnum, or golden rain is brighter than broom
All parts of the plant are poisonous

It is loved by cabinetmakers
It is used for inlay
It makes recorders, flutes, and even the highland bagpipes
Its heart-wood is hard dark chocolate brown,
Its sap wood is butter-yellow
It is a treasure in ornamental gardens
It is trained as espaliers on pergolas
Its ceilings of pendant flowers can be sensational
Its bark is smooth and green

A symbol of Aphrodite
Beloved by Sylvia Plath
With ‘a queenship no mother can contest'
Oscar Wilde described its blossoms
As 'honey-sweet and honey-coloured'.
JRR Tolkien was inspired by it to create the Laurelin,
A mythological tree in The Silmarillion
This beautiful plant, if eaten, induces
Vomiting, coma, sleepiness, convulsions,
Dilated pupils, and frothing at the mouth.
Her symbolic meanings are blackness,
Being forsaken, and thoughtful beauty.


Ice Cream at the Theatre
Maybe you'll watch a Chinese mime
Or Harlequin and his Columbine
Or Punch & Judy (a vicious pair)
Or shadow puppets in empty air
Japan's No Theatre, mystery plays
Opera or comedy, spirits raise
Aristophanes, Molière?
The scene is ready, the cast all there
Melodrama or operetta?
Shakespearean drama: you won't get better
Orchestra strike up! Curtains rise
Stage music awaits to please your eyes!
But better than all on the drama scene
Is the usherette who sells ice cream


Reflections
I look at my bus pass photo
A sour-faced younger version of myself stares back

What's an achievement if no one is there to share it?
A waste of time and effort
It's true, I tell you! It's true!

I used to enjoy drinking water
Till my granddaughter told me
Water's a fish's home

‘a caged bird pines for its first forest
A salmon thirsts for its streams'
So says Dennis o' Driscoll.

On the way to my final au revoir
This is what it all amounts to


Myself as Norway
I can be chilly as Oslo at Christmas
I can be deep as the greenest fjord
I can be Hell, a village near Trondheim
I am Bokmal and Nynorsk,
Split tongued in thought, in word

I can ski over ruts and problems
I can be Sami, a culture in danger
But never a Viking, a raider
Never a conquering stranger


Of Motherhood
‘just as I work out how to be a mother
She stops being a child.' Penelope Shuttle

Prepare to be judged.
Pray in time to be forgiven
Some things must be fudged

Motherhood's not for wimps
There's no guide book
For raising a brand new person
Fate can be a fluke

Motherhood's driving a Mercedes
With no prior training
You don't get to rewrite history
Get it wrong, you Will be held guilty

The 20th Century Artist Race
I am not a painter
I am a poet…
I think I would rather be a painter, but I am not' Frank o Hara

Well, they're all there at the starting line
Georgia O' Keefe… Andy Warhol …Jackson Pollock
Salvador Dali …Henri Matisse… Picasso… Paul Klee
Francis Bacon… Edward Hopper… Marc Chagall

Top Class of the 20th century
All hot favourites in the race for recognition
And they're off! Picasso is strongly in front
But powering through on the inside,
Francis Bacon is giving chase

Breaking free of the bunch is Salvador Dali
Followed by Rene Magritte

And it's Rene Magritte on the final straight
Rene Magritte neck and neck with Marc Chagall
Joint winners crossing the line
And of course, the crowd went wild!

Antique Hunting
Fountain pens and perfume bottles
Novelty barware, chandeliers
Cocktail shakers, hunting decoys
Paintings, vintage typewriters

American sweetheart fancy glass
Postcards, pianos, violins
Artefacts of famous people
Stained glass windows, diamond pins

Ancient chairs, old tools, toolboxes
Art deco and antique clocks
Coins and medals, porcelain figures
Jewelry and black doorstops

Art nouveau, books (first editions)
Victorian art and pottery
Wedgewood china sets, old cameras
Sterling silver cutlery

Rummage, rummage in your attic
Are there treasures lurking there?
They could change your life forever
If they're niche or odd or rare!


The River Dee Story
She's a Celtic Goddess
A neighbour of forests
A mirror for stars
A cup for a moonbeam
A home for fishes
A balm for the weary
A priceless heirloom
A kelpie's haven.
A keeper of secrets
A smoother of stones
A stall for bandies
A stampede of wavelets
A water slide
A palette of amber
A slipway for salmon
A necklace of sunbeams
A babble of bubbles
A patter of pebbles
A shimmy of sand
A dream song of liquid
A spiller of trout
A seepage of peat broth
A paddling pool
A ferry of ice floes
A thunder of spraylets
A pounce of linns
A pocket of fry
A myriad of dam-lets
A glugger of gurgles
A raft of white blossoms
A corsage of sprinkles
A pitch-black yawn
A chasm of diamonds
A frenzy of flooding
A shrinkage of drought
A bird skimming runway
A stone bouncing game board
An angler's hour- heaven
A swimmer's chill shudder
A rower's pulse throbbing
A cairngorm's artery
The heart blood of home