1430

Our solar panels

Are quite unresponsive to

Fifty shades of grey.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 20.2.26

 1429

knowing the rules

To write of Joy this form needs to explode

Yet, like the Masters, I'm bound by the rules;

Each sonnet, roundel, every type of mode

Encases all my verse as if the tools

I need to write have all been handed down

Unchallenged, unconcerned by what might change

Assuming what has been has won the crown

And I must keep my lines within their range.

But oh I long to cut the corset's laces

Swap pen for laptop, sonnet for simple line,

Throw out the narrow way, embrace the spaces

Sans iambic metre and sans rhyme.

I wish - but as this frenzied outburst shows

To give up form, I might as well write prose.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 18.2.26

 1428

Fifty-four years since that first Valentine -

A nonsense verse because I knew no better -

But time does not encourage the sublime

And words are just as difficult as ever.

Fifty-four years of unexpected love

Tentatively etched as if aftaid

That any moment, like a startled dove,

It might fly off before a word is said.

Fifty-four years of constant mystery,

Delighting in the day-to-day unknown,

Hidden within a lifetimes constancy,

A union which endures to make us one.

We may not be as young as we were then

But our love laughs at time - and says Amen!

Brian Hick 14.2.2015

©copyright Sally Hick 14.2.26

 1427

Smile the sun is up, the train's on time,

I've coffee and a Kit-Kat as I sit

Writing this - so everything is fine.

Smile!

Smell the bacon rolls, the benefits

Of service at my seat or the sublime

Delights of doing nothing as befits

An OAP - not of course that I'm

The kind to sit around when I've the wit

To grasp each moment and to make it mine.

Smile!

Brian Hick February 2015

©Sally Hick 13.2.26

 1426

My glass is empty, the sadwiches all gone;

And still the page lies blank - a silent threat

As if it knows my pen simply won't write.

The radio drones on, time, lengthening,

But still nothing comes and what's worse

My mind is like a gnat at summer's end

Desperate to keep busy out of fear

That if I stop I'll have to face the truth

That though I want to write much more than this -

Am desperate to ensure that I still can -

The blank page stares me out until I blink

And it has won again...

            I reread these lines and realise

            This dull dross is not fit for your eyes.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 11.2.26

 1425

A truce? So tell me now when it will end

Or rather why I should believe it will

Make any difference to the daily spree

O death and damage, killing off my friends.

A truce? A moment to pick up our dead

And bury them before it starts again

When one by one we'll drop into the mud

To vanish unremarked by those back home.

A truce? But never let us get too close

Nor recognise I've no desire to kill

You who gave me cigarettes and snaps

And shred a photograph of two small boys

And if it ever happens, would we dare

Believe our enemies, out there, might care?

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 9.2.26

 1424

The winter sun has eased away the frost

Softening the ice edge where it turns

Transparent, seeping downwards as it's lost;

The winter sun.

By the sea wall a teenage couple stand.

Their silhouettes hung like a dying ghost

Of the day's heat, shimmers as his hand

Stretches out to touch her unseen face.

They move away towards the pier and

Fade, as falling twilight creeps to encase

The winter sun,

The winter sun flows on across the Downs

Lighting up the beacons as it cuts

From Firle to Lewes, Alfreston to Glynde.

The winter sun

Low in the east is bursting with new fire

To burn and quicken, purge and purify

Releasing dormant earth to rise again.

Each tiny root, each single sleeping grain

Touched in the thawing darkness out of sight

Will at his touch, explode into the light.

The winter sun.

Brian Hick February 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 5.2.26