English Poems From Henry Viii's Perks Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Henry VIIIth's Perks
Today I am enjoying one of Henry VIIIth's perks
Having my bottom cleaned
By an NHS mistress of the Stool

I am decidedly not on a par with Admiral Nelson
I am all at sea
Courtesy of a curious affliction called labyrinthitis
Standing, the room tilts like a ship in a storm
There is also a horrid nausea
Commonly encountered by a landlubber
Rounding the Horn

Last week it was thrombo-phlebitis
Blood climbing the rigging
Of gnarled and knotted veins

At night I think of Henry sprawled
Like a stranded starfish on his bed
What price your princely baubles now, eh Henry?

What will it be this evening?
Angst, like a sea anemone facing a swordfish
Washing over in waves?
Night cramps keel-hauling the calf?
Slowly across the portholes of my eyes
Cataracts are pulling the blinds
Will all the ghastly ite-isses
Shuffle into the room
Jostling to become reacquainted?
Cystitis- hepatitis-phlebitis
Diverticulitis- bronchitis- arthritis
Gastroenteritis- conjunctivitis et al?

My back is a beached hull
Scraped over shingle in dry dock
Diabetes attaches depth charges to the hold
The forecast is variable
But there are consolations-
Bipolarity, that glacial chilling
Vying with lava eruptions
Is melting into grey sludge
No more Van Gogh.Hello Mr Bean
Welcome, friend. This is Old Age greeting you
Charon, keep your ferry at the ready


Cloud-cuckoo-land
Cloud-cuckoo-land was coined by the 4th century BC Greek playwright Aristophanes in the whimsical and extravagant play, The Birds:

How can I find Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
That vast metropolis of air
Built on a rainbow's silver strand?

Who populates Cloud -Cuckoo-Land
Eccentrics, artists, folk with flair
Romanys of the travelling band?

What's heard within Cloud-Cuckoo Land?
Do trills of nightingales ring there?
Do children sleep, by fireflies fanned?

A nimbus world, Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
The diet's delicate and rare
Nectar and honey on demand

It's peaceful in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
Its leaders are not doctrinaire
No wars within are ever planned

Utopian Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
Idealised, sublime andgrand
Like a great monolith of sand
Shiftingupon the winds' command



The Dinner Party: A Poem Collage
An installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago, a symbolic history of women in civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings arranged along a triangular table for 39 mythical and historical famous women.

Adam's rib, the cause of original sin
Women down the ages tethered in
Cursed by the snake, from Eden driven out
Some broke the mould, emerged with pride and clout

Each place-setting has
A hand-painted china plate,
Ceramic cutlery and chalice,
A napkin with embroidered golden edge.

Most plates show a coloured, crafted vulva.
Some plates depict a butterfly-like version
Place settings rest upon embroidered runners

The dinner table's set on The Heritage Floor,
2,000 white glazed, shining triangular tiles,
Each is inscribed in golden script
With the names of hundreds of women

The artist, Judy Chicago, explained
That women never had a Last Supper
But endured dinner parties,
Where, she noted, husbands' views
Outspoke those of their wives

Adam's rib, the cause of original sin
Women were down the ages tethered in
Cursed by the snake, from Eden driven out
Some broke the mould, emerged with pride and clout

Her triangular table has three settings
One side for women from Prehistory to the Roman Empire
One side for women from the roots of Christianity to the Reformation
One side for women from the American Revolution to feminism

Primordial Goddess, Fertile Goddess, Snake Goddess
Ishtar, Kali, Amazon,Sophia
Hatshepsut, Judith, Sappho, Aspasia
Boadicea, Hypatia, Marcella
Saint Bridget, Theodora, Hrosvitha

Trota of Salerno, Eleanor of Aquitaine
Hildegarde of Bingen,Petronilla de Meath
Isabella d'Este, Elizabeth I, Christine de Pisan

Artemisia Gentileschi, Anna van Schurman
Anne Hutchinson, Sacajawea, Caroline Herschel
Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth
Susan B. Anthony,Elizabeth Blackwell
Emily Dickinson. Ethel Smyth
Margaret Sanger, Natalie Barney
Virginia Woolf, Georgia O'Keeffe

To be included in this famous dinner party
Here were the ‘musts' to let a woman in:

To have made a worthwhile contribution to society
To have improved the lot of other women
To have illuminated significant aspects of women's history
To have acted as a role model for a more egalitarian future

Adam's rib, the cause of original sin
Women were down the ages tethered in
Cursed by the snake, from Eden driven out
Some broke the mould, emerged with pride and clout


Slains
The North sea's wild and the North sea's deep
And the cliffs of Cruden are dark a steep
And the banshee wail of the wind's the sound
Trapped in the ears of sailors drowned

Bram Stoker journeyed to Slains to stay
Where the sea meets land in a thundering spray
And the sights and howls of this place forlorn
Was where his Count Dracula tale was born

Walk through the ruins. Stop and stare
At the perfect place for a vampire's lair
Here where the castle meets the tide's
Where the gates of Hell are opened wide

The North sea's wild and the North sea's deep
And the cliffs of Cruden are dark a steep
And the banshee wail of the wind's the sound
Trapped in the ears of sailors drowned



Holidays Abroad: Lord Byron, Joe Bloggs Public
A poem Collage

‘There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more'…Lord Byron

Lord Byron, a Gordon of Gight
Required a serious entourage, like a small safari
When travelling abroad:

7 servants-5 carriages-5 horses
1 monkey-1 bulldog-1 mastiff
9 cats-3 peafowls-Some hens

A travelling library-furniture
Trunks-portmanteax
Letters of introduction
Cash-a pistol-laudenum

Joe Bloggs public, today travels light
Carrying a miniature pharmacy:

‘Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there.
No.
Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be? ' ElizabethBishop

passport - visa -insurance documents
driving licence, code for hire car
boarding pass /train/ plane /tour ticket
phone-phone charger- electronic plug converter
earphones / headphones/ music player (iPod or other mp3 player)
wallet money credit and debit cards
laptop- laptop charger- camera camera charger
jewellery- batteries- clothes
medication (Imodium, malaria tablets, paracetamol, antihistamines)
malaria tablets- fever inoculations
a copy of all prescriptions- first aid kit- contraception
antibacterial hand gel -wet wipes-face wash-toothbrush
a lockable case for any valuables
face and body lotion- handcream
glasses- glasses case-contact lenses
neck pillow -eye mask- books -magazines- Kindle
phrase book - pen and notebook- playing cards
umbrella- sewing kit-sealable plastic bags for toiletries
suncream -swimming costume- towel -goggles -sunglasses
sandals/ slippers /flip flops -sun hat -beach bag
water bottle- snorkelling kit- wetsuit
sarong - insect repellent-lipbalm
a torch-compass-map of local area

‘Once a year go someplace you've never been before.' the Dalai Lama


The Thunder Hole
At Maryculter on the South Deeside Road, just off the B9077 sits Maryculter House Hotel. Centuries ago this was a community of the Knights Templar (known as a preceptory) , a strict order of holy knights who were committed to protecting pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem during the Crusades. The preceptory was founded by Walter Bisset in 1230.

In Maryculter, once, there stood
A precept'ry for pilgrim knights
The Templars, who in Arab lands
Joined the Crusades in deadly fight

One, GeoffreyWedderburn was hurt
In battle, where the arrows rain
An Arab maiden rescued him
Nursing him back to health again
The years passed by. The maiden came
To visit Geoffrey where he stayed
But his preceptor accused them
Of sinful love. Were vows betrayed?

He told the knight to kill himself
So that his impure blood would flow
The Saracen maiden shared his knife
But dying, faced Sir Geoffrey's foe

And where the harsh preceptor stood
She called a curse upon his head
Before another moment passed
White lightning fell and struck him dead

Walk lightly by the Thunder Hole
Unquiet sleepers linger there
Where lightning with its fatal fork
Brought vengeance to the Templars' lair


The Sayings of Winnie, Aged 7
On seeing a pigeon crooning into a chimney
Nana, that pigeon is singing into a microphone

Nana look at that lamp post
It's a seagull's private perch

Nana, the world's favourite colour
Is blue, just look at the sky and sea
Because otherwise they would be green

Nana why do old people die?
To make room for new ones being born

Mummy: your nails have fallen off
Are you moulting?

Nana I didn't know I'd push the girl
Into the puddle. She was bigger than me

On Nana in hospital
Daddy, can I see Nana again in case she dies?

Nana why are there ropes under your skin?
And why does your skin flap in places?
And nana why does your face have creases?

Daddy why are you smoking?
Because I'm a dragon
No you're not. Dragons have wings and a tail

At the School of Unlearning
Top of my list to blitz
Would be sarcasm, the teacher's
Instrument of torture
Next, I would unlearn panic
That comes like a boxer's punch from nowhere
Blind-siding me out of the void
And lastly I'd ban pre-judgement
Like a tapestry fixed, not fluid
I'd unpick every stitch
And tease it free


Jiggers
Jiggers cruised through life
Like a ship of the White Star line
On a not very steady keel
Ever since he laid down his abacus
He was more often broke than minted

But like Peter Pan with a duster
He swept stuffy cobwebs away
A clean and pretty man
With his Hollywood smile
He could play a woman like a piccolo
One blow in their ears
And down they toppled like ninepins

What polished him off was the poppy
Not Ypres, not Somme
The stuff that De Quincey favoured
The curse of Caledonia
All his friends off chasing dragons
Dream smoke from a poisoned spoon
Fom a needle prick
A generation, wiped away in a blink


At the Champs Élysées
At the Champs Élysées
Springtime blossom blew
Like a breeze through
The young door of my mind

First trip abroad, en famille
France, strangely, felt like home
In the street Piaf played from a café

Later, the high Alps
Rang with tinkling goats.
The cider was colder than ice

The Eiger seen by cable car
A frozen shimmer of drops
And the carriage creaking
Threatening a dead fall

In an Interlakken lounge
My brother tipped cream
Over the back of his spoon
Into a Cognac paid for by my father
While I, neither adult nor child
Sipped coffee from a cup as large as a chamber pot


Of Artists and word painters
Dorothea Tanning, Margaret Atwood
Lord Randal, (ballad) , the Twa Corbies
Paul Klimt, William Soutar, Burns
Chagall, all leave their legacies
Primo Levi, Francis Bacon
Michaelangelo and Vermeer
Marcus Aurelius, Norman McCaig
Sorley Maclean, and of course, Landseer
Rene Magritte and Andre Breton
Durer, Ted Hughes, Bosch and Lear
Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde
Danti Rossetti, Will Shakespeare
William Blake, Basho and Escher
EE Cummings, Munch and Gray
Constable and Seamus Heaney
John Clare, taking the rural way
Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath and Bocklin
T.S.Eliot, Byron, Scott
Dickens, master of the image
Dali, oddest of the lot


Pandemic
Pleasure ships turn pariah
Like the plague boats of old
Passengers incarcerated in cabins
Are picked off one by one
As harbour after harbour refuses entry

Theories proliferate. Some say
This flu's a scientific conspiracy
To obliterate the elderly
Others say it's a biological warfare weapon
Escaped from a military map

Some, trawl the internet
Chance once in a lifetime
Rock bottom bargain holidays
To exotic places near corona zones
Gambling thrills against health

The inside of toilet rolls (who knew)
Are made in China
Stock pilers dump their paper hoards in horror


Glen Ey
Kettle holes, boulders, moss and scree
Storm clouds scudding across the skies
Altanour with its rings of firs
The eerie echoes of curlews' cries

Blueberries growin on Carn Bhac
The massive hulk of Bheinn Iutharn Mhor
Peat bogs, crags, white mountain hares
Alpine flowers on a loch's back door