The Ineffective Scarecrow

Perhaps he is sick of being a scarecrow
As I sometimes ache to be anything other than me
Now that I'm all dried up, like a squeezed orange
Like a swan on tenterhooks
Treading a path between broken dreams and ashes

The scarecrow wants to go back to being a stick
No more predators, loneliness, crows
With their constant cawing

He is sick of being a warning in the wind
He is sick of being one foot stuck in the dark

He dreams of being a spoke in St. Catherine's wheel
A moment of burning glory, then adieu
Of being a broom in Hitler's final bunker
Sweeping aside the bullets and swastikas

poem by Sheena Blackhall
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Colombo

Waves topple like skittles down the beach
A gecko is the room’s unpaying guest
Sinbad sailed these seas by such a moon
The old colonial bed stands on stiff legs

A gecko is the room’s unpaying guest
The hotel writing paper’s wafer thin
The old colonial bed stands on stiff legs
Banjo the one-eyed dog howls for a bone

The hotel writing paper’s wafer thin
Catamarans hunt tuna round the bay
Banjo the one-eyed dog howls for a bone
Tropical lightning cleaves the night in two

Catamarans hunt tuna round the bay
Waves topple like skittles down the beach
Tropical lightning cleaves the night in two
Sinbad sailed these seas by such a moon

poem by Sheena Blackhall
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Ravens

The raven is the national bird of Bhutan
It is worn in the royal hat.

The raven is the official bird of the Yukon
And of the city of Yellowknife

King Harald Hardrada carried a raven banner
Called land-waster, a Viking boast

In Sweden the raven is known
As the ghost of a murdered person

In Scotland, a raven's a corbie
Feasting on knights and gallow's meat

The ravens, Hugin and Mugin
Sit upon Odin's shoulders
Their names are Thought and Memory

The raven is the trickster god

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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The Suicide Imp

You’re a kid in sandals sitting in a car
Whooshing high speed past heath
‘Say BOO! ‘ says the suicide imp
‘And you’ll all go spinning’

But you sit on your hands
You clamp your tongue in your teeth

You’re swinging alone in the park
The height of the stained glass pane
‘Slip off’ says the suicide imp
You tighten your hold on the chain

You’re cycling a hair-pin bend
Freckles speckling your face
‘Edge to the left, ’ he says
‘Woo empty space’

It’s the sunniest day in summer
You’re walking over a bridge

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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Shopping Trolley

I am a shopping trolley.
I am hooked on pushers
They strip the shelves like locusts.

Bikers zoom me round with granite fists
Pensioners slump over me like caterpillars
Babies are dumped in me like pupae
I whizz through plastic jungles of bananas
To the surprisingly friendly cackle of plastic hens

I am a shopping trolley I am heavily into Zen.
I am a metal meditator
One day I may levitate
Over the drinks aisle
Frightening the alkies.

I am a water carrier,
This bottle on my spars
Contains the following:
(Please read before swallowing)

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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Buddha at the Bodhi tree (Sri Lanka)

Here, to the oldest living tree
Pilgrims have flown, sailed, crawled and bussed
To feel its shade to know its strength
The world’s not owned but held in trust

It never withers, fresh shoots grow
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Does not apply to such a tree
The world’s not owned but held in trust

Buddha, in this tree’s motherland
Had conquered self and fear and lust
Now every seed the message gives
The world’s not owned but held in trust

Treasures you covet, things possessed
Silver and gold all turn to rust
Others will claim your home, your land
The world’s not owned but held in trust

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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The Dark Belongs to the Feral Ones

A lone assistant, an all-night stand
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Flash of a blade behind a door
The dark belongs to the feral ones

Mayhem & menace, muggings & fear
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Drugs and litter and fights, and beer
The dark belongs to the feral ones

Boots that stamp on a victim's face
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Is it the fault of blood, or place?
The dark belongs to the feral ones

Gym-slip bride in her council flat
Somebody's daughters and somebody 's sons
She's the local hoodies' welcome mat
The dark belongs to the feral ones

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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The Irish Soldier

The Irish Soldier
Edward Marshall is my name
Ireland is my nation
Leeds is my dwelling place
And Heaven’s my expectation

My mother came from Erin’s isle
She’s buried in Dungannon
My sweetheart is a Limerick lass
The Rosebud of the Shannon
I came to Blighty seeking work
And listed for a soldier
For when the drums of war beat out
There is no man that’s bolder

They gave me three square meals a day
A uniform for drilling
A place to sleep, a private’s pay
A gun and blade for killing

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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Dead Robin

The inadvertent fact of a robin
Carelessly snapping its back on a glass bus shelter
Is not a major tragedy of epic proportions.

Nevertheless, today there has been a death,
Two beautiful slender legs
Are crossed, a demure crucifix of twigs.
Tail feathers, folded away
Like ironed packing.

The small red body nestles in my hand
A cold flame
Fragile as an egg.

I do not want to bury it.
I do not want to draw earth's curtain over its closed face.
This delicate two-winged coffin.

I stroke and stroke the fiery breast
The light brown back

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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The Görings

Albert Göring, Hermann’s younger brother
Helped Jews and Czechs escape the Holocaust
His forebears numbered Counts and social thinkers
His godfather, a Jew, supplied his home
Two castles towering in baronial splendor

A film maker, he starred in war’s real movie
Hated the Nazis, their brutality
When Jewesses were forced to scrub the streets
This dapper-suited man knelt down to join them
Shaming the SS guard to let them go

Hermann, the elder, spread race-hate through Europe
Like rancid butter, bully-boy of bigotry

Albert, squirreled bank accounts abroad
Funding escape routes for outlawed resistors
Gas-oven fodder and the walking dead
He used the family stationary, signed Göring
To snatch Jews where he could from execution

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poem by Sheena Blackhall
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