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Southampton

Town Quay, 4pm

Sun breaking through the clouds

My pencil's shadow poised across the page

A pint of Red Cat from the Dancing Man

The Solent silvered in striated light

Red Falcon loading for the Isle of Wight

Prose turns to verse as beer and sun combine

To turn these passing moments into wine.

Brian Hick March 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 25.3.26

 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

 Ask

Bald headed blokes with earrings and over-weight blondes

Surround me as I try to eat alone,

Cut off from life save for my mobile phone

And random thoughts of cliffs and hammer ponds

Somewhere upon the Downs, where the bleats

Of dull but friendly sheep will keep me free

From all Southampton's stark modernity.

The West Quay's numbing mall, the High Streets

Bland pedestrianisation and the miles

Of pavement that go nowhere but avoid

Any hint of human warmth or joy

Insisting this is life and we must smile.

          Betjeman's prayer could not snuff out Slough

          But, surely to God, Southampton must go now!

Brian Hick March 09

©copyright Sally Hick March 2022