917
Warning
'Do not wear your glasses in the morning
When you take a shower, for you will see
All the black mould clinging to the grouting
And hairs stuck to the bowl with drying pee.'
If you think that you're creating
Imaginary people in your verse
Do not share this with a wife whose thinking
Assumes you're writing about her - or worse!
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 21.3.23
916
Late March - mid week
The tables empty and the afternoon drifts on.
It's not yet summer warmth buth the clear sky
And unexpected brightness of the sun
Lull me into thoughts of mid July.
Scattered tourists squat upon the beach
Or stroll in clusters by the burnt out pier,
While last year's language students teach
Newcomers how to drink our English beer.
Saga parties fill the Whiterock bar
Preferrint it to walking on the prom
Where they have heard of feral youths who scar
The seafront, picking fights and doing wrong.
As for me, I'll sit here with a pint
Of Harvey's as it drifts towards twilight.
Brian Hick Late March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 29.3.23
915
I came to you for simple understanding
In friendship, rather than imposed command;
I hoped that you would follow in my footsteps
To love as I loved, trying to understand
How even those who hated you had value
And no one was beyond redemptive love.
But now it seems I might have been too hopeful
For humankind, where Peace, that gentle dove,
Can only be assured by blooded weapons
And violence precedes the enforced calm.
The footsteps that I left seem to lie empty
With few there seeking for insight or balm,
While masses flock to massacre the innocent,
Slaughtering, to gain a martyr's palm.
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 27.3.23
912
Equinox
The sun is up but still low in the east,
Flowing through the tops of Shorndean trees
With gentle warmth to melt away the mist.
The sun is up.
At the water's edge the wavelets ease
Themselves onto the beach, a single twist
White-edged, before they sink and softly tease
The shingle; empty deck-chairs quite insist
It's not too soon to simply sit and seize
This turning point to summer's coming bliss.
The sun is up.
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 20.3.23
911
If I accept that I can never know
Any more than this small human brain,
With its hardwired synaptic flow,
Can compass in the brief years that remain,
How on earth can I make sense of you
Who saturate my soul and fill my heart
With joy, beyond my meagre means to show,
And love's uncomprehended, enearned dart?
Words alone can only go so far
Confusing at the instant that they reach
A willing ear, where cold semantics jar
The mind, searching beyond what words might teach
And all the while the universe runs on
In conscious hope, as when it first begun.
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 17.3.23
909
You are the elsewhere that has come to me
The un-thought thought, unreasonable rhyme,
Sudden unexpected inspriration,
Illogically divorced from place and time;
And yet you sing to me of chance perfection,
Of hope that goes beyond the written word
Turning all our plans and expectations
Into a dream which laughs at the absurd.
Why would I want to pin down this elation
With law and ritual meanly devised
By narrow-minded human misconception
Of all that is, because it's not espied
By scientific means or interception,
When all I need is streaming from the skies?
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 13.3.23
907
There was a time when I could simply write
What came to mind regardless of its worth
And, for my part, it seemed the very sight
Of lines upon a page laid out in verse
Were more than compensation for the time
It took to wrestle with the words and form;
And even if it didn't always rhyme
It pleased because you liked what I had drawn
From walking to the station, or the sight
Of distant starlings, foxes padding round,
Brief memories of childhood, sudden bright
Awareness, insight, caught if not profound.
But now I seem to scrap more than I keep
Wishing it more meaningful and deep.
Brian Hick March 2011
©copyright Sally Hick 8.3.23
904
March
The sky is bright and clear, but in the street
Thick frost clings to windscreens and headlights,
Yet bushes glisten as the early sun
Melts away the frosting of the night
Turning a Winter memory into Spring
In one unnoticed moment as I stride
Towards the station, unaware of ice
Which lurks in shadows on platform or track-side.
A watercolour haze of wet on wet
Drifts the tree line as far as I can see
Merging the familiar into one
Free flowing canvas, as if it had begun
To recreate a world of ease for me
Back to a time before we ever met.
Brian Hick March 2011 with a note written at the side of a printed copy for me to read through as usual. I like this because for once it's not my voice and the 'you' is definately not you in the final line!! X
©copyright Sally Hick 1.3.23
