SCOTS Project - www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk Document : 516 Title : Queerie-Orrals Author(s): Sheena Blackhall Copyright holder(s): Sheena Blackhall Text Sleep Fast, We Need the Pillows (Traditional Polish saying) I am sleeping as fast as I can So as not to wear out the pillow. Pillows are precious This pink one was mail order Bought by my mother, now deceased. Deliberately nylon, so it never creased. Half of a matching set Except they never matched Was this one his or hers? It'll outlive us all. Immune to disease, to moth The ultimate mort-cloth. If I unpicked it, what secrets would it tell? Pillows are fickle, shameless. Promiscuous. Pillows lie down with anyone. When I, too, am dead, Oh pillow, who then will hold you close? Whose dreams will run like rivers Round your frills? I'm Pulling Myself Together I'm pulling myself together. Has anyone seen my ears? I know they're hiding somewhere...They're quite distressed, poor dears. I'm pulling myself together. I seem to have lost my nose.. It's maybe beside the fly spray, in the shed with the garden hose. I'm pulling myself together. My teeth, my lips, my hair Last spotted lay in a tangle, in the box beneath the stair. I'm pulling myself together. Oh, where's my public face? The one that I pretend with that I'm part of the human race? I'm pulling myself together. I'm stitching up the seams But now that I'm patched and mended, has anyone seen my dreams? Hope There's a Hope locked up in my loft. It's not forgotten It's kept in a jar with a pin and an old brass button You'd probably say it's past its sell-by date It's mutton dressed as lamb. It's far too late For it to go to the show and win the prizes How do you know, sourpuss? Hope's full of surprises! You can keep the books, the debris, the horrible china The catalogue clock and the cobwebby vagina You can keep the lot... I've something up my sleeve Hope is hitching a ride when I up and leave. Hope's warm and private, a furtive, secret thing Like belly button fluff or a cast off ring I don't intend to lose it or throw it out When I'm old and I've lost my teeth I intend to shout 'Bring out my Hope Let me look on its lovely face For it's going with me when I quit the human race!' Charon's Passengers Inspiration: Painting entitled 'The Stages of Life' by Caspar Friedrich. Into the silent water, slips the silent prow Lifting the dripping anchor over the tilting bow. There's no star on the skyline, past the silver moon All the world it ferries, in secret, late or soon. Into the faint horizon where no man comes back Each man travels lightly. Each man takes no pack. All the world it ferries, in secret, late or soon Into the faint horizon, past the silver moon. The Clay Speaks to the Potter A kyrielle for Sandy Petrie, Aboyne Acdemy Art Department and the late Leo Clegg, Gray's School of Art Schoolhill. When Eden's tree put out its leaf Its roots with my dark side did pleat You were created from my bones The gentle dust beneath your feet Holder of honey, milk and wine The cup where lip and liquid meet I am the fragments ground by Time The gentle dust beneath your feet The hatchery of history Older am I than wood, than peat I am the child of storm and stone The gentle dust beneath your feet Touch me. I yield, take any shape Then turn my face towards the heat Of transformation in the kiln The gentle dust beneath your feet And when you step from light and life Into the tomb, so cool, so sweet I will enfold you at the last The gentle dust beneath your feet. Jacob's ladder Inspired by Stephen Campbell's Painting: Gardening Barbers Debating in a Small Airplane Garden Jacob's ladder soars from bins and shop-fronts. Masonic angels wearing bovver boots Working the day shift, clip the beanstalk trellis That hug the nebulous sides of misty steps, Dusted by night squad angels' dusky wings. Such a ladder (a Spiritual Forth Road Bridge In constant need of repair) Symbolically ferries Storybook Giants, Jacks, knaves, Aces, Kings Discarded heroes Mourned (and unmourned) lovers And penguins who ascend its heights with hoists. This tower of fable This Babel of to-ings and fro-ings Doesn't teeter like Pisa. No Rapunzel's hair hangs from its Heavenly lair. What's there? What's up at the ladder top? Iron-shuttered bookies? Urban terrorists masking pots of tea? A tiger picking its teeth with a pheasant's feather? What's the climate like? Is it fair or stormy weather? Is there a Fast Food Palace serving loaves and fishes? Are there security angels to oust intruders? Illegal imps and demon asylum seekers? The ladder is ancient. At its rickety feet Dragons and skinheads sleep Palaces tumble. Myths, abandoned, weep. Tarot After a Tarot reading by Catriona Low A long white table. Seven golden bowls. The first holds passion, red as burning coals Ripped out, a trophy in the chalice mouth Love slain that once was East, West, North & South. The next is golden. Here, the lotus grows. (The heart's dark cave with Buddha-petals glows) While in the third, a clever severed head In isolation floats, by isms fed. The fourth bowl overflows with fruits of sound The butterfly of music spirals round Its tongue is honeyed. Here, it flits and sings Humming delight with diamond-flashing wings. In the fifth chalice, shining like a sword, A steely snake emerges. Thought, made word Power sits hissing in its slits of eyes For it is ancient, venomous and wise The last two bowls sit close. The sixth is deep, A pit of dreams where pearls and dragons sleep. All journeys start and end in this dark cup, A rainbow from its black well rises up A ghostly bridge, as faint as morning's blush That loads the hair-tip of the artist's brush But in the seventh, images drop down Into a poisoned bowl, to blur and drown. Seven golden bowls on a white table sit, Apart and yet each is a part of it. The snake's acknowledged. Honour's in its hoard. The seventh bowl is bitter, but adored. New Cottage Industry: The Egg-Head In the writers' farm I am free range I don't want my eggs in one basket I want to be broody in lark's houses In hare's forms. I want to produce triangular eggs that bounce Or square ones with sky-blue yolks I want to bark instead of cluck And maybe have metal feathers And at the end, please A lion stamped on my poems To prove they are up to scratch. The Psychiatrists' Safari We are going on safari today to catch psychiatrists. You must be quick to catch one, As a tribe they are slippery as a slide in Vladivostok. Their chemical constitution Is two thirds sulphur, one third gas and treacle. They cultivate anonymity under white coats Their diet is diagnosis Fed by the slow dissection of egos Succulent as vol aux vents. In the human zoo, someone is always outside, Someone is always in. We are going on safari today, to capture psychiatrists, Pied Pipers of brats and brawlers And mind-states of no fixed abode. Leftovers A litterbin of the past, one dented tartan tin Holds a key to a something no-one quite remembers Buttons of Sunday jacket, Saturday's dance dress. There is also a red pencil, 'Braemar' in golden letters, Stamped on its side. Buttons, key, pencil, Have never grown fatter or thinner. The buttons have lost their owners, but do not mourn them. In the manner of buttons they are quite hard, quite brazen. One button shone from my brother's blazer pocket. Over the thunderous organ, his long, white fingers Pressing keys, releasing hymns from silence, The button reflecting the brass from alter and aisle. The other is incognito. Red as flamenco. The key may have opened amazement's door To a china can-can dancer's jerky steps. The pencil stamped 'Braemar' in golden letters Ran a red light one night in father's conscience Scribbled a passionate letter, to a lover. Leftovers, when we're dead outlive us all. Moustaches Dali's moustaches Were tuned in to the stars. Hitler's was merely a typewriter ribbon Over the clacking steel of his words Europe in mourning underneath his nose. The laughing Chevalier's Was choc-a-block with beer Whilst Kitchener's was kitsch. How like hedges grow the world's moustaches! They hibernate in winter Icicle bound and brittle. Soup creeps up their stems Pea green, tomato, Even Chinese lentil Abseils along their strands Hercule Poirot's was stiff As a Welsh Life Guard But a mandarin's dangled like liquorice Sly and Oriental Eminently knottable, suckable, Machiavellian. Doused in drams Moustaches curl and bristle Like porcupines Or walruses on parade Moustaches of the world, We salute you Razors are sharpening a little to the left The sinister side... Droop, droop, You may evolve into a beard. The Thinker After a conversation with Angus Calder Never sidetrack a thinker when he's thinking. Dante, Dvorjack, Keats may be passing through his synaptic clefts Lighting the touchpaper to multiple Eurekas! Interjections fling red herring Into the works. They may trepan The cranium, expose the cortex with its vortex of surmises, Causing the playful Thalamus to stall A red Mercedes sinking in the Styx. Cerebellum, as far-ranging as Magellan, may short-circuit. May derail conscious thought. Ought one ever to disturb a thinker, thinking? His skull may nurture a lily The blueprint for a Jacuzzi A chemical bomb The reason behind the Kalahari's heat Invention's a tornado in a tortoise A galaxy of fireworks in a shoebox Those whose discoveries might change the word forever Titans of thinking, that invisible art Should be tiptoed round as if they might explode. Scotch an Wry Scotch corpse: a cairryoot Scotch thrift: darn it Scotch summer: ower in a wunner Scotch caber: Heilan fling Scotch tenor: giein't laldy, tartan baldy A Poem about Famous Doorknobs & their Owners Zen Masters tell their disciples that it should be possible to meditate on the most humble of subjects, even that of a doorknob Rasputin: a giant gleg Gabriel's gate: a large gold tick Cleopatra's palace: a hissing coconut Marquis de Sade: a man o war jellyfish Oor Willie: best B&Q plastic model number 666/a.topper. Persephone's winter residence: a snowball Jung's waiting room: The Bermuda Triangle Mussolini's apartment: a marshmallow Captain Hook: a magnet of mythical proportions Sean Connery: a furry Hey Jimmy doorknob, made in Dundee Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein: spaghetti letter playknob Georges Braque: a triangle Buddha: an invisible lotus The Alchemist If I cud be an alchemist, wi crucible an scales I'd makk butterflees frae powder kegs, an siller sangs frae whales I'd takk the hoolet's pupils, fin he's flichterin on the prowl Makkin x-ray contact lenses that I'd fashion in my bowl I'd makk ma claes mair delicate, fae wabs the spiders knit Nae need tae wash or iron flimsy threids made ooto spit An I wad hae an ostriche, fa wad sweesh aroon, superior Tae dicht the televeesion wi the plumes o its posteerior An fowk fa harbour bees in bunnets, fa I dinna like Wad be stung bi their ain argyments, bizzed oot in angry fyke! If I cud be an alchemist, I'd pu a rainbow doon An use it as a taxi cab tae flee aroon the toon If I cud be an alchemist, wi magic wand an book I'd makk a thoosan sherbert dabs fur polar bears tae sook! Flowers Men are presented with books, malts, trout rods, Cufflinks. Clocks that tell the hours with silver hands. Women are still in Eden, Eve to a man. Comrade Nadia Petronosky digging her 20th drain in Upper Soblensk, Is presumably handed a sheaf of lilacs and lilies For services to municipal plumbing. Divas from Canberra to Crieff are drenched in bouquets (Each after-birth is floral) Like the blossoms flung in the path of the Nazarene's donkey. I never touch a flower but I see my father's coffin, Strangely shrunk and small, roofed in chrysanthemums With one wet petal falling to the floor. Table Table is the great-great nephew Of a Canadian pine felled in the forest clearances His siblings packed into boats, have scattered across the oceans. Under two white coffee mugs He muses subliminally on chipmunks Beaver, bear and Mohawk Nostalgically thinks of skunk The air conditioning Suddenly blossoms rose. Oo Rev. Ian MacPhail's plus fours Cam fae a noble pedigree. Their mither, Grizzel the yowe, Wis kent ower ten green braes As a swack an douce-like quine. The discipline a the spinnin wheel an loom They hae tholed... these scrapins o their mither. The future o her oo has noo bin shaped Shank-warmers Dowp-hauders Coddlers o haly baas. Silk Night in the Nursing Home. Lamps burn low, Nurse Higgins slips Miss Stapleworth into bed. Silk pyjamas glide on withered withers Silk knows that soon its wearer Will meet the worm. Leather Dr O'Leary's brogues no longer moo But have been known to skip at the sight of clover. The Montrose Song Tune: Will ye Go tae Sheriffmuir The officer who reputedly 'died for the bonnie lass a Fyvie-o' was Major Christopher O'Cahan, an Irish dragoon. Hae ye seen the great Montrose, wi a rooser fur a nose Iron teeth tae chaw his foes, steppin up sae vauntie? Fin they fulled his christen in mug, a coo wis bairned bi a dug A wummin tried tae kiss a slug, an ither things sae clarty. Fin he crossed the Brig o Dee, "sign the Covenant" said he "Or I'll set the musketry tae drub yer burgh sairly" Black the day Montrose cam back, Irish bloodhounds at his back Fur oor bonnie toun tae sack, in the name o glory. This is foo an army thrives, makkin widdas ooto wives Loadin cannon, grindin knives, ready fur the stooshie Wad ye like a cure fur ague? Leprosy the pox or plague? Tie a ribbon roon yer craig. Jyne Montrose's pairty. Bold dragoons war firin shots, made frae Fyvie's chunty pots Trampin roses an shallots roan the Howes a Fyvie Syllabub an buttered wine, there's a sodjer a the line Won the fecht bit nae the quine, the bonnie lass a Fyvie. Covenanter, Cavalier, soun the drum an they'll appear Sell yer coo, lock up yer meer, for aathing they will spulzie Catched an caged, wi feint a care, he wrote poem an caimbed his hair He steppit up the gibbet stair, intae the page o history. Hung an drawn, the butcher's cairt, rowed him roan tae ilkie airt Fur playin o the lion's pairt, roon oor noble country Efter he'd been hoodie bait, Gweed King Charles, oar potentate Gaithered him tae lie in state an kistit him wi glory. (Note: John, 1st Earl of Middleton, as viceroy of Scotland in 1661, welcomed into Holyrood House the remains of his former enemy, Montrose, reassembled for a funeral in St Giles Cathedral. The Earl of Middleton is a forebear of the Middletons of Coull, Tarland, the poet's paternal kinsmen.) King Charles I 19/11/1600, Dunfermline Castle -30/1/1649, Whitehall scaffold Tune: Barbara Allan. Written during a visit to Fyvie Castle, organised by the NTS King Charles rose up thon hinmaist morn, twa sarks he chose tae weir, Lest he should shakk, an fowk mistakk pure cauld, fur signs o fear. They brocht his littlins tae his room, sae they micht takk their leave, An he has pressed them tae his breist, an telt them nae tae grieve. The anely soun, the beat in drum, the craikin o a craa, As past the silent crowds they lead their monarch tae his faa. Afore the scaffold happt in black, (the hooded heidsman's airt) The boughs war bauld, the Thames rowed cauld, through Lunnon's frozen hairt. The first step tae the scaffold bare, he stamped his fit wi rage, For aa unfair, he saw aince mair, the mock trial o the age. The second step King Charles took, he faltered wi his fit, He felt the stangs o Civil War, an kent the waste o it. The third step forrit that he gaed, his brither Scots sae quick, Tae save their kirk, drew sword an dirk, afore his prayers they'd spikk. The fourth step that the Monarch tuik, his een luiked hyne awa, On war wi France, on war wi Spain, that brocht nae gain ava. The fifth step syne, he brocht tae min', wi ile they did anoint him, In costly goun, he wore the croon, as king they did appoint him. The saxth step ben the scaffold stair, he welcomed hame his queen, A fleur-de-lis brocht ower frae France, sweet maid o new saxteen. The seventh step, nearhaun Daith's yett, his hairt wis like tae brakk, He stude at Fyvie's castle waa, the Ythan at its back. In Fyvie's green an pleisunt lan, the infant king wis free, Tae rin its braw, blink-bonnie braes wi Seton's faimily. The hinmaist step! He faced his foes, an spakk oot load an clear. The sodjers drave the crowds awa, for fear o fit they'd hear. An syne, thon slicht an cultured man, luiked Terror in the ee, Tae show the leal, fu brave an weel a Stewart King could dee. He's laid him doon, raxxed oot his airms, like Christ on Calvary, The swingin blade a martyr made tae greet Eternity. Journey to the Amitobha Buddha, Forres A fox lay on the tarmac, Back, curled like a hen's feather Foraging paws stopped in their urgent tracks. Dead on a full belly Snapped like a twig by a quick car A punch bag, thudded onto the cat's eyes. His delicate pointed face was bright with dew. Round a narrow bend the road stretched wide Autumn burned in flames Where an eagle guzzled the wine of a stilled hare, His raptor's feathers flounced like a grandee's ruff, His great beak skinning the fur Like a butler removing a lady's crimson dress. Under dripping shrubs Through webs of trees leaves fluttered down like snow. Journey's end. A house of stairs and hush Where Amitobha sat, the sunset Buddha Above two peacock plumes, framed by a window Holding day's dead fires. Flowers in his hand, warm candles at his feet. The shrine-cloth coiled beneath in folds of blood. And then, the muffled drum-beat of a tabor The mantra like a pulse, lub-lub, lub-lub. An owl rose like a ghost from silent woods Opened his wings and scattered stars like jewels. Deevilick, Deevilick Deevilick, deevilick far hae ye been? "Fae the birssle o Hades tae cauld Aiberdeen." Did ye lowp in the Denburn tae frichten the fowk? "Na, tae cweel doon ma hornies, ma hochs an ma dowp." Druid Dru=oak Wid=knowledge Wid (Scots)=forest. Wirds war framed tae strikk a spark, Tae licht man's thochts alang the dark, Gods war ferlies fowk cud see: Sun, and meen and fish and tree. Roon the circle o a flame Early hunters tied a name Tae the speerits steerin by Wid an walter, stane an sky. In the dyew the ocean saw Heiven in a wattergaw. Shaddas raxx frae evil deen, Like the drappin o a steen, Deep inbye a lochan's pot Ooto sicht, bit nae forgot. In the mantra o the hairt, Dreams an desolations stert, Een an tongue an lug are gates, Here pass mervels, myths an hates, Ken them fur the stuff o play, Masks an mummers fur a day. Spittin wild cat, douce blue-bell Fellow-traivellers like yersel. The Dream A dream cam teetin roon ma door, 'Can I come?' said he, I fixed him wi a glaissy ee, An speired him questions three. 'Oh dae ye bring a happy dream O bonnie simmer days? Or dae ye bring a widden-dream O bogies, ghaists, an waes? Or dae ye bring a prophecy Tae tell o roads I'll rin? Oh tell me truly, chappin dream Afore I let ye in!' Bleeding Angels Today, a rainbow leaked. The falling rain was radiant! Bright drops of Angels' blood. The Worry A Worry the size of a midgie or flee, Creepit inno the bosie o Teenie McGee. It grew through the nicht big's a were-wolf sae furry, Nae twa winks o sleep could she get for the Worry. Next mornin, at brakkfaist, she drew up a cheer, An saw, tae her horror, the Worry sat there. It treetled ahin her fin she wauked tae class, Sae big noo, the teacher could hardly win past. Fariver she gaed it wid lowp like a troot, Frae bus stop tae hame blottin aa the warld oot! She'd staun in the street 'I've a Worry!' she'd yell. 'Be quate' fowk roared back 'We've got Worries wirsel!' Sae she gaed tae her granny, an grat on her lap. (The Worry cam tae, big's an elephant's bap). Granny tuik oot her glaisses, the Worry tae see, Bit noo Teenie'd shared it, the Worry grew wee. It shrank an it shrank till it dwinnlit awa A Worry, eence shared's nae a Worry ava! Poem Train "The next poem coming is due to stop at..." Being a poet is just like being a station If one is due, the tracks begin to tremble. 'Please note the 8.09 Will be stopping at Eddie Morgan up the line.' My pen stays poised To catch one when it comes Out of the mist, on metal-powered grooves. Poem Factory When Daniel Vaughan was bored one day, he didn't moan, instead He made a little poem about the things inside his head. It was a friendly little poem. He grew to love it, though He thought perhaps it needed friends... The poems began to grow. And some poems skipped, and others danced, and some lay down and mused, And some were short, and some were long and terribly confused. So Daniel's never lonely, for they walk with him, you see Whole squads of little prancing poems from his poem factory. And if he smiles at nothing, or a tear shines in his eye Don't take the matter personally... A poem is passing by! Crunch Time Inspired by the painting Lips 2000: Jeff Koons Small pink craters, Dew collectors Quiver like fleshy anemones. Tongue's antennae root around In their oozing anchorage Drooling over a lush of lozenges Tingling under a shrapnel of grapefruit. Once under the pearly gates A pert young peach Is mauled, keelhauled. The world is liquified, Ground down to size To fuel the nitty-gritty of the day. Cat-Scan: A Brain's Soliloquy I am dreaming on top of my stem I am a nest for vampires and felines With exquisite banshee wails. I can reach warp factor ten. Zeitgeist and poltergeist dwell In feisty old me. I am Baroque and Zen My carotid arteries sip Strawberry-coloured food, For Thought is carnivorous, sweety-pie Without it, Archetypes Archangels Arias Would shrivel away and die. Fresh dawns bring new horizons to my cerebellum Intriguing enough to be charted by Magellan. Behind my lashes, behind my dewy peepers Words interweave like rustling jungle creepers. Sleep, has the final word Time's metronome that ticks in the spinal cord. My neurons are crackling: message coming through From Mr Joyce beamed from the Blarney stone: Welcome, 0 Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time The reality of experience And to forge in the smithy of my soul The uncreated conscience of my race. 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Information about document and author: Text Text audience General public: Males: Females: Audience size: 1000+ Text details Method of composition: Handwritten Word count: 4073 Text medium Book: Text publication details Published: Publisher: Severin Books Publication year: 2003 Place of publication: Aberdeen Text type Poem/song/ballad: Other: Collection of poems Author Author details Author id: 112 Forenames: Sheena Surname: Blackhall Gender: Female Decade of birth: 1940 Educational attainment: University Age left school: 16 Upbringing/religious beliefs: Brought up Protestant, now Buddhist Occupation: Writer and supply teacher Place of birth: Aberdeen Region of birth: Aberdeen Birthplace CSD dialect area: Abd Country of birth: Scotland Place of residence: Aberdeen Region of residence: Aberdeen Residence CSD dialect area: Abd Country of residence: Scotland Father's occupation: Manager of Deeside Omnibus Service Father's place of birth: Aboyne Father's region of birth: Aberdeen Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Abd Father's country of birth: Scotland Mother's occupation: Private Secretary Mother's place of birth: Aberdeen Mother's region of birth: Aberdeen Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Abd Mother's country of birth: Scotland Languages: Language: English Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Language: Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: Elementary. Gaelic choir. Poetry. Language: Scots Speak: Yes Read: Yes Write: Yes Understand: Yes Circumstances: