1449

You point the way; so why do I feel blind

Confused before the grief that fills my life

As if my daily pain, the creeping haze

Or soft yet meaningless confusion, rife

With thoughts divorced from feelings or concern

Which might at some point, though they seem uncouth,

Console the spidery threads that circle round

The edges of what could just be the truth?

Despair's a sin, ending it all a crime

Against your love if not against the law

But sucked into this mire of apathy

How can I raise my eyes to with for more?

Why should I continue with this fight?

End it now; snuff out this little light.

Brian Hick April 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 9.4.26

 1447

Death of a salesman;

Wonderfully acted but

Oh so depressing.

Brian Hick April 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 4.4.26

 1414

Nothing now to mark the silent hours

Nothing warming hearts within the rain

Nothing reaching out across the void

Nothing here to melt away the pain

Nothing to arouse a troubled mind

Nothing changing, everything the same.

Brian Hick November 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 22.11.25

 1409

Leaden skies oppress the day,

Poisoning the colour of the Downs,

Deadening the landscape, where the sounds

Of feral winds sweep from the bay.

The pub is full of fucking fans

Heaving their abuse at players - who

Remain oblivious - as if they knew

Better after sixteen cans.

Is this world passing us by,

Its dull depression draining all of hope,

Leaving us with little faith or scope

For any change, before we die?

Brian Hick November 2014

©copyright Sally Hick 10.11.25

 1275

Call yourself a writer?

Where's the proof?

Or does it simply mean

There's not one thought

One flash of inspiration

In all this time

That might be worth recall,

If only by yourself,

When all the dross of life

Is heaped on your forgetting?

Is your life so shallow

That each hour brings you nothing;

As if, an aging sloth,

You grope from this to that,

Unconscious of the outcome,

Unaware of what has been

Or might be, just because

You acted as you did?

Meanwhile the thinking never stops;

Words whirl incessant,

Uncontrolled, irrational,

Far beyond all hope

Of pinning down

Each specimen

Before it flutters, wounded, off to die.

Brian Hick April 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 23,5,25

 1272

I'm up to date, so why do I feel confused.

As if there's something lurking out of sight,

That little something, leaving me bemused

Because it hints that everything's not right.

Perhaps it's always been like this, for when

I try to recall what I have done

Only failures float back up again,

Embarrassments, and not a hint of fun,

Which surely must have been part of my life

And yet it's missing from my memory,

Wiped out by depression's endless strife,

Cancelled by a faceless enemy.

            If you can wind the clock to show me more

            How easy then to worship and adore.

Brian Hick May 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 17.5.25

 1253

The sun will shine? Storm clouds mask its power.

All the world seems bleak and colourless;

Dull hopes deep beneath refuse to flower.

The sun will shine.

Science and Experience may express

Assurances that life will not be dour

Forever, but the unalloyed excess

Of misery, depression and the sour

Taste of darkness batter and oppress

The chance for light to pierce my blackened tower.

The sun will shine?

1254

I thought this poem

Would be a bright happy one

So please, what went wrong?

Brian Hick February 2013

©copyright Sally Hick 25.2.25

 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

 Loxwood

A happy day. Walked over seven miles

In undulating countryside, woods of beach

And oak to shade us from the summer's sun,

Silent paths and not too many stiles.

Why then, in all this pleasure do I find

So little to inspire me, or to stir

Ideas which might just be set down as prompts

For memory to deflect a fretting mind.

Must I feel depressed before a line

Can formulate and constitute

The kernel of a verse that might just mean

Something to us, at some future time?

            I wish I knew, for then we could elope

            With memories that give some glimpse of hope.

Brian Hick

©copyright Sally Hick 22.4.22

 I'm on the train

The buzz of conversation on the train

Makes it impossible to read or work,

Overhearing one end of a call

To cadge a lift or, wheedling, to shirk

A planned appointment, leaves me feeling numbed

That their lives carry on on while mine's on hold

Until a silence settles and my thoughts

Can focus on the present - yet untold

Confusions and a jumble of demands,

That early morning can't prioritise,

Raise memories of recent sleep which draw

My consciousness down to the gentler prize.

  For now dreamless oblivion, gentle death,

  Seems preferable to this babbling mobile mess.

Brian Hick February 2009

©copyright Sally Hick February 2022

On visiting Prague in 2009 for the winter festival

                Here I

           Need no pills or

Potions for my stomach ulcer,

     No psycho chat to break

          Depression's grip,

                      For

    Ice-bound Prague brings

             Mental detox

                 With its

            Silent snows. 

Brian Hick January 2009

©copyright S Hick 2022

1652

The Ash Tree

In the grey morning, gulls drift overhead

As we drift on towards Waterloo East.

Autumn has returned and in its chill

There's little sense of fruitfulness or Keats'

Abundance as the sodden trackside trees

Await a rotting death of fallen leaves.

The train is silent though the seats are full

As if we were a far-flung family

Returning from the funeral of a child

Each caught up in a passive reverie

Of unrequited grief - the silent pain -

Of loss for love which will not come again.

Outside my office window the ash tree

Waves and shimmers in the autumn sun

Calling me from this depressive verse

Back to a reality long spun

In days of warmth and light, which never cease

When love's compassion brings love's quiet peace.