We've only just recovered

From Halloween's dread hosts

With lots and lots

Of tiny tots

Dressed up as ghouls and ghosts,

When on comes 5 November

And Thursday's bonfire night

So we've a week

Of bangs and squeeks

Before there's some respite

From public demonstrations

Of forced frivolity

But now I fear

Christmas is near

And shops throughout the nation

Are wall to wall with carols

All Jingle Bells and sleighs

To make us buy

Another pie

Or Cadbury's Milk Tray

So, in the first week of November

The shops are full of cheer

With Santa hoods

And Christmas puds

And crates of Yuletide beer

X x x x x x x x

Brian Hick 11.11.09

©copyright Sally Hick 31.10.22

 Stopped in the Street

I know I wear a hat and a black coat

But I have to admit that I did not expect

To be stopped and asked politely if I was

A Minister or an Insurance Agent?

Is my appearance thus so circumscribed

That even though I'm neither of these two

I fit the stereotype up to the point

Where people recognise me in the street

Not for whom I am but what they think

I ought to be?  Maybe I need to change

The way I look to better suite the me

Which lurks within this black exterior.

           But first, I really will have to decide

           Just who I am - and what I want to hide.

Brian Hick 11.09

©copyright Sally Hick 28.11.22

 In Holton Wood the deer are in rut

           We see them slide between the trees

           But, catching our scent upon the breeze,

They move on before they cut

Across our path.  The stag alone

           Stands and turns to stare at us

           While his does, without fuss,

Melt into shadows and are gone.

Our walk is heralded by cock

           Pheasants, who flash across our way

           In frantic flappings as they spray

The woods with warnings of attack;

Starling, like the bay of hounds

           We passed a mile back in their pen

           Which suddenly we hear again

As they are fed and go to ground.

This poem is not very good

           But I was desperate to write

           Something after last week's sight

And thought that I never would!

Brian Hick 30.10.09

©copyright Sally Hick 26.10.22

 Autumn - and the trees are drying up.

They may seem golden and impress our eyes

But inside the sap is thinning out

And every leaf shrinks back until it dies,

Drops off and rots beneath our feet.

Each tree protects itself so that next spring

Its resurrection simply goes to show

That natural continuity will bring

Again fruit to the earth and life will run

As if nothing can halt its endless flow.

But I, meanwhile, stagnate and as I lose

My hair, my teeth, my hearing and grow

          Each day a little less than I once was

          No spring can renew what I have lost.

Brian Hick October 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 24.10.22

 Ennui - 2

There was a time when I was free and smiled

To see him easing down the street to visit,

Flowers in hand, a tiny moment stolen

On his way back to his digs in Seven Dials.

But now I am no different from these birds

Trapped under glass, as dead as any rat

Swept out with last night's ash, casual relics

Of a glittering past, their song long since unheard.

Each night he sits, and even when we eat

He says no more to me than 'Pass the salt'

And for the rest, I might as well not be

My life reduced to keeping his house neat.

          If once we loved, when did it fade away

          Into this silence, and this endless day?

Brian Hick (on seeing a silent couple eating out)

©copyright Sally Hick 21.10.22

 Ennui - 1

He sits where he has always sat each night

A pint of beer - hallf-empty and half-full -

A box of matches and a cigarette

Staring into space, caught in a light

Which pins his shadow to the chest of draws

Its brown weight stolid as his crumpled suite

And the fading patterns on his table cloth.

His mind, as ever, in rapt attention pours

Over the mintiae of his day and sets

In order all the non-events which click

Into their places alongside the meals

Which are always there, in case he frets.

          Life revolves round breakfast time and tea

          With everything in place, as it should be.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 19.10.22

 Fatality at St John's

Half an hour late at Tunbridge Wells

          Doors won't open, breaks are stuck

          And I feel I've run out of luck

Before I've reached the morning bell.

Coming home, via London Bridge

          'Severe delays' on platform five

          But I at least am still alive

And have no cause to fume or judge

While along the platform discontent

          Rumbles from commuters who

          Do not know what they can do

To get back home to deepest Kent.

Down at St Johns, by platform one

          A family's guilt, for they out live

          The tattered corpse which cannot give

Them answer, now that he is gone,

To all the questions, raging round

          From memories of ugly words,

          Slamming doors and jangling chords

Of arguments, like unhealed wounds.

The pain which he tried to avoid

          Has been passed back to those who cared

          Or could have done, had he been spared

But now can only sense the void.

I read of death on every page,

          And every day another war

          But single loss affects me more

Than genocide or tyrant's rage.

For we know loss is not the end

          And though I never knew his name

          His death goes through me just the same

As if he were my closest friend.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 17.10.22

 The Hard

Trying to find somewhere to eat, I walk

Down faceless sixties streets, past office blocks

And civic sites, depression setting in

With every step, until I come upon

Some trees leaning towards the rising sun

Moulded by the wind from out the channel

Terns casting themeselves upon the breeze

To float and skim on currants I can't see

But blustering round me, buffeting my nose

With rotting seaweed, hanging on the stumps

Of sea defences stranded by the tide,

As storm clouds cluster off the Isle of Wight.

          Still nowhere to eat, but by the bay

          The Channel winds have blown my blues away.

Brian Hick at Southampton 

©copyright Sally Hick 14.10.22

 Wednesday

Wednesday, and it's now almost five days

Since I've had time to contemplate some verse

But travelling to Enfield on the train

I can make time for thinking and reverse

The headlong rush which going up by car

Necessitates, for, while the music helps

To calm the jangling stress, there is no space

For language to unfold and write itself.

So here I am, pen poised and coffee poured

The carriage silent and the summer heat

An English Idyll coaxing me to spill

My locked up feelings over this blank page

          However, should normality ensue,

          I'm liable to doze off 'til Waterloo.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 12.10.22

 Lavender

Glanced from the window of my evening train

Near Sevenoaks, the lavender's in bloom

And suddenly I am a boy again

Dancing with Mrs Bunton to a tune

I now forget but pop in fifty-eight

When we were all on holiday in Devon.

The waft of lavender almost knocks me out

As, hardly reaching to her Edwardian bosom

My innocent boyhood reels from the sweet spray

Sprinkled on hankies from the pixie pair

Bought as a souvenir earlier that day

While on the tour to Ilfracombe and Beer.

          Sensuous memories; far beyond my ken,

          For I am older now than she was then.

Brian Hick 

©copyright Sally Hick 11.10.22

 Ringlet

The large white, in perpetual motion, skims

Edgily across the falling roses;

The ringlet stands upon a privet leaf

Static as if dead, then springs away.

Taunted into action by the white

They spiral up towards the holly tree

'til both are lost from sight beyond the beach

And solitude descends on me again,

Inertia pins me to this seat, while they

Seem triggered by a sense of purpose I

Should feel but don't, relapsing into silence

And a void suppressing all creative thought.

          Day by day the garden waits for me

          But my mind does not want me to be free.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 7.10.22

 In memoriam - Marina Pavilion

There was a time, in eighty-four

           We used to come down to the sea

           To sup a pint or cup of tea

On Sunday afternoons, what's more

The Marina Cafe may not have been

           A tourist high-spot but at least

           Its sandwiches could be a feast

For hungry trippers who were keen

To try the sands or rifle-range,

           A dip with knitted swimming costume

           Huddled up because there's not room

Under the towel for two to change.

But now this grey-glass box has slinked

           Into its place with iron spikes

           And keep-out signs, which we dislike

For all we wanted was a drink.

The cracks and patches are the same

           The thirties mosaics don't quite match

           The concrete and the pebble dash

But they would do for us who came

To ask for simple things to eat

           A cup of tea, a piece of cake

           A coffee or a juice, to slake

A thirst brought on by summer's heat.

It's not to be, we turn away,

           The carvery's beyond our purse

           And anyway it might be worse

Than letting Hannah have her say

And walking back along the parade

           Into the town for fish & chips

           Avoiding the one-up-manship

Which doesn't seem to want our trade.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 5.10.22

                            Where does

                   A poem come from?

Some days they seem to write themselves

                      Yet on the next

                    Nothing happens.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 3.10.22

 Write!

Just write it down, ignore the iambic line

The Tennysonian rhyme scheme and the verse

Which obnly places strictures on your thoughts

And makes the outcome doggerel or worse.

But how can I, when every time I think

Of writing down my thoughts, they always fall

Into blank verse themselves, and what is more

The rhymes are there without my aid at all.

Perhaps if I were stronger minded, they

Could all be brushed aside and I would find

True freedom in free verse and vistas new

Beyond the narrow confines of my mind.

          One day perhaps a new form will arrive

          But until then this sonnet will survive.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 3.10.22