English Eccentrics

The wind is howling from the north,

       The rain soaks to the skin

  And as I fight my way to town -

     He's giving his lawn a trim!

Brian Hick 25.11.08

© copyright S Hick November 2021

How many prawns die a natural death?

'How many prawns die a natural death?' he quipped;

Since when our meals have never been the same,

Not that we would ever want to blame

John for the question, but even as it tripped

So lightly off his tongue, it had become

The corner-stone of our lunchtime debate.

Any time we start to get irate

Or quarrel, there is bound to be someone

Who'll question the iconic prawns, to ease

The torrents of Foucault or Thomas Paine

And bring us gently down to earth again

Before we turn to pudding or the cheese,

   How strange to think that in the death of prawns

   Our quirky family unity was born.

(with thanks to John Hubbard)

Brian Hick 25.11.08

©copyright S Hick November 2021 

 These last few days I feel I've lost my touch.

Verse that flowed so easily and read

As if it had exploded from my head

To form itself in one effusive rush

Now seems banal and trite, an exercise

In form and levered rhymes, without the twitch

Of intellect or heart-felt passion which,

At best, can worm its way beyond the eyes.

Perhaps it's only passing and next week

A pearl will find its way onto the page

To pacify this stomach-churning rage

That interrupts my dreaming as I seek

To find a jewel worthy of a line

Rather than this tawdry paste of mine.

Brian Hick November 2008

©copyright S Hick 2021

Things which never were but always are  Quintilian

Quintilian's paradox keeps bobbing up,

In unexpected places, like today

At Tony's daughter's wedding where the way

The name of God and Love were conjured up

As if there were not a hint of doubt

About the meaning of the terms, and more,

The potential understanding of their core

Which moves us but can never be pinned down,

Love has been with me for so long

It's difficult to credit it's unreal

And surely it's much more than what I feel

Or everything I value.  Can I be wrong?

           The paradox which runs around my brain

           Is, if Love unseen is real, is God the same?

Brian Hick November 2008

© copyright S Hick November 2021

The poppies have fallen for another year

Another armistice has come and gone;

We hold the silence, but as soon move on

 In lives removed and unable to bear

The constant weight of memory and of guilt

That we survive only because they died.

The silver inkwell sits above the stair

A gift from grateful villagers to one

Who fought - and who survived - along the Somme

Running the ammunition in his care

From lethal dumps to fetid trenches filled

With body parts, the generals denied.

And can I

Brian Hick November 2008

©copyright S Hick Nov 2021

11.11.11

A washed out sun striates across he fields

As storm clouds gather over the west hill.

Calm at present, but the gulls can feel

The coming turmoil as they swoop and wheel

In unexpected silence over head.

How does nature appear to know this time,

This day? An armistice, now almost nine

Decades away, and yet the unnumbered dead

Are ever present, and the lines of graves

As poignant to my heart as any loss

More recent or profound, the untolled cost

Flooding my mind, in dull incessant waves,

           My grand-fathers survived, so I remain

           Thankful, but un-absolved from pain.

Brian Hick Nov 2008

©copyright 2021 S Hick

 

Work

Past one o'clock before I got to bed

And up again at six to spend the day

At Selsdon High.  I had hoped that I may

Have found the time to really get my head

Around last night's Ivanov or the National's

Portrait Exhibition, but I find

They've faded and the focus of my mind

Is Tax returns and over worked professionals.

Why can't I find a  middle way between

The hurley-burley of the working life

With all its, tensions, nit-picking and strife

And the intellectual haven of what's seen.

           If I retired I could have Art each day

           But could I stand a life out of the fray?

Brian Hick Nov 2008

©copyright 2021 S Hick

October

All facing the same way, a florid rush

Of starlings settles down atop the beech

'til at a silent signal they explode

In twittering clouds of swirling abstract shapes.

By the front steps caterpillars swarm

Over the ornamental cabbages;

Rhododendrons bloom on railway cuttings

And small oaks hold their leaves in mottled green.

The evening sun cuts through the trees to light

A stand of birches, silvering the copse;

Two pheasants poke their heads above the ferns,

A chestnut mare stands cropping in the field.

           Tomorrow, frost may tear all this away,

           But its unexpected splendour marks today.

Brian Hick October 2008

© copyright 2021 S Hick

2 October 2008

When you read this I will be far away

Beyond the reach of any human kind

And all that was my body and my mind

Turned into ash or snugly bound in clay.

That part of me you knew is now dispersed

Into the quarks and protons that combined

So many years ago, till they refined

A human child, who grew upon the earth,

Who loved and laughed and lived until the day

When, as all creatures must, he stood before

The immutable and universal law

Of transformation, fusion and decay.

           But while memory survives among my friends,

           Your love and these words will never end.

Brian Hick October 2008

© copyright 2021 S Hick