POEM OF THE DAY

Three original little poems from Sheena Blackhall’s new pamphlet, Secrets: Poems in Scots and English (published by Lochlands, Maud, Aberdeenshire, at £3).

PICASSO’S HEAD OF A WOMAN

I am the right eye of Picasso’s woman I look down always, never, never up I never see hats, just shoes

I only know the properties of pavements I look over cracks, tree roots, small dogs and kerbs

I see shadows, subways, cigarette stubs, gum

I do not dare look up

The artist has condemned me to be passive

Submissive. My horizon is bounded by feet

Wet matches in muddy alleys

I strange perspective, one step up from Hades

I am in love with puddles, with reflections Strange muse, to so contort a face

THE HEART OF THE HOME

The heart of my childhood home was music

A piano, a mandolin,

A zither, guitar, harmonica

Jews harp and song

I breathed this out and in

Rhythm was deep within my family’s bones

Heart of the house, it thrummed along our veins.

THE LITTLE BONSAI TREE (2)

I am a human Bonsai tree

My voice is pruned to poetry

No mighty oak or pine am I

In my small space beneath the sky Crooked and skewered, it’s kind you see To foster anonymity