929

The Organist

Wouldn't it be nice

If he could play a few more

Notes Bach actually wrote.

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 28.4.23

 928

Yesterday I wrote the opening verse

For Oh Hastings with consummate ease.

It flowed as if the synical and terse

Ideas had pre-existed, just the need

To set them down, fall naturally in place.

This morning's something else, for I am faced

Again with a blank and empty page;

Yet flicking back I cannot but accept

That over the last three months I've written

Poem after poem, as if my life

Were nothing but a reason to create,

Setting all the best of me replete

          And empty pages, frightening at first,

         Are just another reason to write verse.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 26.4.23

 927

We're Sussex Men and Sussex won't be druv

 However

We lost the Battle to the Normans

We lost the castle to the sea

We lost the cricket pitch to shopping

We lost the pier to infamy

We lost the White Rock to Victoria

We lost the Gaiety to Cinemas

We lost the Memorial to the system

We lost the sea front to the cars

We lost the harbour to the channel

We lost the beach to Dungerness

We lost the ice rink to the vandals

We lost St Mary's to the mess

But we could go on listing

All the things that we have lost

And all because Duke William

Beat Harold to the toss.

Brian Hick 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 24.4.23

 926

The plough is overhead, while the north star

Sits above the park, but all the rest

Have disappeared beneath late evening cloud

Drifting up the channel from the west.

A gentle scuffling behind the fence,

perhaps our lonely vixen with her sight

On easy killings, but the noise dissolves

Into the undulations of the night,

The only sound across the darkened wood

A solitary owl call from the void,

His cry unanswered even by the gulls

Who swoop in silence, seemingly devoid

Of life, their spectral presence outside earthly laws;

As I wait for the cat to come indoors.

Brian Hick Spring 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 21.4.23

 925

Why is it far more difficult to write

About the Spring and all that gives me life

Than drone for ever at the lack of light,

Dark depressive days and endless strife

Which autumn and foul winters seem to bring?

Why should the sight of daffodils seem lame -

As if Keats and Wordsworth got it wrong -

No more than a sentimental game

Ignoring the realities of long

Long freezing nights, before the Spring?

Why would my suspicious mind deny

This sudden burgeoning across the town

Where every verge and garden fills my eye

With shifting warmth, writ wide enough to drown

My shallow selfishness and let it sing?

If I weren't so blind perhaps I'd see

The bliss of solitude could work for me.

Brian Hick spring 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 19.4.23

924

I realise now there are things I'll never see,

Places I won't reach.  Even though

I don't feel death is imminent - and maybe

I'll live another forty years - I grow

Ever more aware that Time is short

And getting ever shorter by the day;

For though I still feel fit, enoy a walk,

Relentless Time chips and chips away

The confidence I had that I could do

Anything, and all I may achieve

Is limited to what this fragile frame

And even frailer mind is subject to,

Despite the coming end, I'll still believe

That Life is more than pessimism's pain.

Brian HIck April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 17.4.23

 923

Enforced solitude

Should be a good excuse

To read or meditate,

Except that we indulge ourselves

In that nightly abuse of reason -

Something mindless on the TV.

After all, we've time;

We're not too tired,

The  evening's free,

We've nothing else to do,

So why not make the effort that's required,

Use some intelligence

And even show that we've a brain

That's worthy of the test -

Able to endure exposure to

A few hours by ourselves,

And let the rest cave in

To Dave and the Antiques Road Show?

Good - I'll settle down and make amends;

As soon as this Midsummer Murders ends.

Brian Hick April 2011

©Sally Hick 14.4.23

 922

When a writer gets

Too old for biography

He seeks new ideas.

Maybe I'm not old enough

Yet...

Brian Hick April 2011

©Sally Hick 12.4.23

 921

Have I been wasting time since seventy-three,

From that first poem stumbling into view

Out on the hillside with the Sixth Form, who

Enjoyed the day, but failed to sense that he

Who took them there was brewing up a storm

Which would define his life, and even though

Blank days ensued, the need to write was so

Demanding that these very words and form

Are children to that verse above the lake

At Turner's Hill, and nothing seems to stop

The flow of verse, regardless of the crop

Of doggerel lines, imperfect rhymes, which make

          Occasional haitus but can't halt

          The ever rarer verses writ sans fault.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 10.4.23

 920

Life gets more like a

Written version of Crap's Last

Tape every minute.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 8.4.23

 919

Sans toi

I need time to write

So being here is perfect,

But I'd rather not.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 5.4.23

 918

Long Walks

It seems we're getting older as the walks

We're planning shorten as the years go by;

The South Downs Way of ninety-three out stripped

All subsequent endeavours by some miles:

But all have had their moments and some days

Enchanted us despite the shortened length.

Perhaps we're now concerned with quality,

With panoramas rather than the strength

Of thighs or ability to out-pace

The others? Many friends no longer can

Come with us, in the wake of bodies which

Are giving out.  How sad; the mind of man

          Longs to stride forward past the point

          Where brain decamps and knees are out of joint.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 3.4.23