A Matter Of Lunacy: English Poems Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Inspired by 5 set Conversation pieces: Christine Borland
5 separate sculptures
5 common birthing positions
5 babies' heads in 5 female pelvises

All in glazed bone china,
Decorated with Chinese flowers
Set out like a fancy tea set

Resembling cups in saucers
Like Delftware, blue and white
Delicate as human frailty
Easily smashed if dropped

Like skeletal remains in a mortuary
Births gone wrong
Conversation pieces for pathologists
Perfectly crafted, post mortem


Inspired by: The Art of Lucy & Roy Hughes Design Issue 1: Network

Networking
When I'm forced to network
My braincells turn into jelly wobble
Demented spiders on shaky legs
Like neuron connectors on speed
Electroconvulsive therapy without anaesthesia
Like a step into quicksand or bog

The aftermath of this unpleasantness
Is a body like a drained battery
Like a torn balloon
Like a ripped parachute
Like a gun-stunned sow
Like a felled crow

It takes a whole day in a silent room
Of emptiness or calm
To restore the status quo

Midsummer Dream
In Celtic mythology, birch is a tree of beginnings
It symbolises renewal and purification.

Birch is the first tree of the Ogham alphabet.
Celebrated during the time of Samhain
Witches rode birch broomsticks in shamanic flights
When Halloween took over that magical
night

It marked the start of the ancient Celtic year
Bundles of birch twigs drove out evil spirits
Gardeners used birch besoms to purify plots

The tree had fertility connections with the May day rites of Beltane.
In Highland folklore, a barren cow herded with a birch stick
Would become fertile, thanks to the ‘Lady of the Wood'
Even barren women with birch aid might bear a brood

Beltane fires in Scotland were fed with birch and oak,
The birch tree was often used as a living maypole.
Birch is deeply engrained in the Celtic soul

Birch wood makes handles, toys, bobbins, spools, reels
Makes babies' cradles, fuel for distilling whisky
Is used:
For smoking hams and herrings,
For tanning leather
For thatching houses
For bedding when scarce of heather

The sap when it rises in spring
Is fermented to make birch wine
When the tree is tapped
Druids made drink from its sap at the spring equinox.
A key to the ritual turning of Nature's clocks

The leaves are antiseptic, a remedy for cystitis
Leaves and sap treated kidney stones, rheumatics and gout.
The sap eased skin complaints. The bark soothed muscle pain
Each birch tree is magical, silver, sylvan, mysterious

Inspired by Gerard Stott's The Vandals

Vandals
To a daisy, each human's a Gulliver
An ogre who tramples and tears

Two bald men, stereotypical baddies
In clunky bovver boots
In heavy, thick, dark clothes
Are ripping flowers from the ground
For the sheer hell of it

Headless, they fall to the earth
Their life cycle cut down, abruptly

Why do people pick flowers?
To decorate a church?
To cheer an invalid?
To woo a lover?

And where would a jury stand
On grievous bodily harm
To these blooms and innocent blossoms?
Do plants feel pain or not?


Inspired by: Neville Storer The Sisterhood

Sisters
In Africa, two tribal sisters
Are gathering firewood

Each has a baby on her back,
Bound by a bright blanket
Tied around their belly

They are delicate, natural, beauties
Fine boned as two young cheetahs

On an Aberdeen bus, smothered
In layers of clothes against the cold
An African woman has a baby on her back
Bound by a rough blanket
Knotted around her belly

The baby has a cough,
His nose is running.
He looks blankly around the passengers

They sit so close
And yet so far away


Mary Ann Cotton
Once a femme fatal called Mary Cotton
Used arsenic as her choice of weapon
Slipped it in her victim's gruel or tea
Callous and conniving and mercenary

Cotton was hanged at Durham Gaol
The rope was short, it was set to fail
Not a broken neck, but strangulation
A killer brought to annihilation

Her life was littered with bodies in her wake
She killed for the insurance money's sake
But the dead don't lie, and exhumed they told
That murder was Mary's source of gold


An Apology: for Robert & Sandra Millar
A special date is on its way
So clash the cymbol, bang the drum
My thoughts go with you on that day
So sorry that I cannot come

But you'll have friends to celebrate
To chat and laugh and share the fun
Well earned, good folk like you are few
So sorry that I cannot come

George MacDonald
George MacDonald was born in Huntly
Descended from kin in the Glencoe massacre
At Kings he studied medicine, theology
Becoming a congregational minister

He lectured out in the USA
Wrote novels. Was famed for fantasy
In late life stayed in Brodighera, Italy
Established a studio, casa coraggio

What of his works? Here's list of some
Men and Women. The Vicar's Daughter
The Lady's Confession. The Carasoyn

Phantastes, and David Elginbrod
The Portent, and The Maiden's Bequest
Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood,
Robert Falconer, more of the rest…

At the Back of the North Wind
The Fisherman's Lady
Wilfred Cumbermede
Marquis of Lossie

The Princess and the Goblin
The Curate's Awakening
The Baron's Apprenticeship;
Sir Gibbie's worth knowing

The Laird's Inheritance
The Princess and Curdie
What's Mine's Mine
And Lilith is feisty

Day Boy and Night Girl
The Highlander's Last Song
The Flight of The Shadow
Joining the throng
Salted with Fire and Windlestraws
Diary of an Old Soul, The Golden Key
George MacDonald, the Huntly influencer
Left behind a lasting legacy


The Disinterred early 12th century- 18th century
Here they were born, and here they lay
Fishwives, merchants, butchers, lords
The priest at their funeral spoke the prayer
Rest in peace, in the Latin words

Sanctified ground, once loved, once blessed
Where citizens came to bury their dead
The Mither kirk in the heart of the town
There, folk were christened and later wed

Rest in peace, but their sanctuary breached
Archaeologists broke the crust
Changing times and an atheist age
The dead are statistics now, and dust

No mourners left. Do the dead have rights?
Are they stacked in a box somewhere
Like books in Glasgow or Aberdeen
Another tick in a scholar's lair?

When will their bones be taken back?
A communal pit in their ancient city
Is little to ask. Enough's enough!
Rest in peace, in the name of pity

Lie-ography Inspired by a e mail from Sally Evans
I have had official confirmation by DNA
That paternally I'm a direct descent from Genghis Khan
Maternally, I am sib to Vlad the Impaler

I have a map of Grampian etched upon my tongue
Once, I ate a hundred year old Chinese egg with chips
Afterwards, I ran a marathon round Lochnagar

I communicate telepathically with a robin
Three gardens away

I have a tattoo of Salvador Dali between my clavicles
And the face of John Knox on my buttocks
Everytime I pass a motion, his mouth opens

Each Friday when I see a yellow vehicle,
I shout cheese on toast and salute it

Sometimes I dream of badgers
vaping orange hydrangeas

Age creeps up on me cruelly.
Mushrooms grow in my ears
Fungii invade my toenails
Mould wraps my neck like a scarf
Scales descend on my eyes like dropping visors

One day I shall paint a masterpiece
It will be hung in the Louvre
And feature on Wetherspoons beermats

One day I shall record a cd
That will go platinum
And I'll headline at Glastonbury

And for my pièce de résistance
I'll discover an anti-midgie injection
Saving the tourist industry millions

I may open a hostel for displaced badgers
And King Charles III will lust after my hydrangeas

A Question of Lunacy
The queen of the night, it is said
Is the cause of werewolves
Mood swings and madness
She is cherished by poets and lovers

She affects bipolar sufferers
She shortens sleep

Killers in 18th-century England
Could ask for a lighter sentence
On the grounds of lunacy
If the crime was committed under a Full Moon

O magic one that rules our human night
Luna, silver traveller round our globe
The cold dew and the owl, worship you



A Year of Moons

Wolf Moon Moon
In January the Wolf Moon rises
Wolves once howled with hunger
At this time of the Winter Solstice

Snow Moon
In February the Snow Moon claims the night
When snow falls fast and soft
And creatures shiver

Worm Moon.
March brings the Worm Moon
When worms squirm out of the ground.
(Some name it the Milk Moon
Bleary as blind man's cataracts)

Egg Moon
In April the moon bears the name of
The Egg Moon, symbol
Of the Easter resurrection
Of new life growing

Hare Moon
May's moon is the hare moon
The hare gazing moon
The Beltane moon
Of the sacred Wiccan hare

Mead Moon
In June the Mead Moon rules,
When beehives drip with honey
Near to the summer solstice
Sip of summer sweetness
Mellow moon

Buck Moon
July: Buck Moon
This is the time when a buck grows its full antlers.
Some name it Thunder Moon
After the summer thunder storms.

Barley Moon
In August the moonlight shines
On the burnished barley
Sweetly it rustles in the warm night.

Hairst Moon
September is the hairst moon
Nearest to the autumn equinox
Some call it the Corn Moon
When the crops are gathered
It shines bright to let farmers
Harvest into the night

Hunter's Moon
October, when people would plan for winter
And hunt animals for food.
Both beasts and man

Frost Moon
November, the frost moon
Trees have lost their leaves
Beautiful russets and gold
Whirling into the ditch

Oak Moon
December's moon has many names
Cold Moon from that season's chill
The Long Night Moon, the Oak Moon
Of the Druids, door to a new year