686  The Roman Bath -  a sonnet

Julius Caesar came here for the iron

Ignoring Bannatyne's imperial worth

But Caratacus, ever one to try out

New-fangled things, build us this splendid bath

In AD 51, as you'll have noted

When reading Mr Brisco's little guide

To Summerfields' palatial house and garden

Before you wandered down to sit beside

Our Roman Spring, with its lion heads (now missing;

Stolen by some Vandals in the night)

But if you close your eyes for just a moment

I'm sure that you can conjure up the sight

            Of ladies, lying languid, in the sun

           While young men oil themselves before they run.

Brian Hick 9.3.10

© copyright Sally Hick March 2022

On leaving a group walk to look at the building that was our first home.

Bonny Street

Why am I finding it so hard to write

About the minutes that we spent last week

Rushing hand-in-hand  to Bonny Street?

Sneaking away, like lovers in the night,

From friends upon the Regents Park Canal,

Time fell away and, teenagers again,

We stood before our house - but here my pen

Dried up, for what I can recall

Wells up and overflows into a joy

Refusing to consign itself to verse

With sentimental notions or what's worse

A doggerel sonnet which will simply cloy;

            How could a final couplet be enough

            To sum up forty years of being us?

Brian Hick April 2009

©copyright Sally Hick April 2022

 Down in the bar they are playing Keith Michell.

The Man of La Mancha oozes out behind

The football scores and chat of ancient cars

From anoraks who've gathered in like mind.

But I am back with Marriage Encounter and 

That moment when I started to realise

We were more than just a pair in love

- Like Romeo & Juliet, all dewy-eyed.

We were united in a way we find

Created all across the natural world

Where love - too small a word for what I feel -

Shines out as if it had been hurled

            Into eternity for all to see

            That there is nothing else but you and me.

Brian Hick March 09

©copyright Sally Hick 11.3.22

 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

 The curse of In Memoriam

The silent carriage on the train

            Two students chatter all the way

            And overhead the tannoys play

Their verbal games to fuzz my brain.

A sudden silence; will it last?

            Dare I take my book and draft

            Some morning thoughts and try to craft

Lines before the coming blast

Of 'Now arriving at Winchester'

            'Please take all your luggage with you'

            'This train does not stop at Crewe'

'Change at Basingstoke for Bicester'.

Quiet again, but now I've lost

            Any hope of rational thought

            So turn back to the paper bought

At Waterloo, despite the cost,

With freebies lying all around

            But who reads Metro, with its streams

            Of soap and junk and unfilled dreams

When you yearn for matter more profound?

But then the new is so depressing

            What with job losses and the banks

            And of course no-one gives thanks

To those of us who are still working

Let alone the silent hoards

            Who keep the country ticking over

            Cleaning, sweeping, no hint of clover

Or a soft place in the Lords.

Pause there: the problem with this verse

            As Tennyson found in In Memoriam

            Is it can run as infinitum

Unless you have the guts to curse

And stop it dead.....

Brian Hick March 09

©copyright Sally Hick March 2022

 Reality?

A glance and I am hooked for who could read

Or paddle a computer when this view

Demands indulgence.  Who can heed

The night's concerns or work we should pursue?

Frosted vales await the morning's burn

And sheep stand idly as the stealing sun

Inches across the pasture to each in turn.

Rabbits, caught out, twitch and then are gone

In bolts of fluff into the shadowed bank,

Where primroses and daffodils ensure

My sentiments continue to give thanks

That this Wordsworthian moment is so pure.

          But then, a call to say my father's ill,

          Drowns happiness I'd come to feel.

Brian Hick March 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.22

 I do not want to write this for the Spring

Is glorying the fields around the train.

Erupting greenery fills out the gaps

Between the hedges and last night's gentle rain

Has polished all the surfaces to gold.

Leafless trees, expectant, seem to know

Another week and every silent twig

Will smile with tiny buds, where once was snow.

Occasional veils of mist pretend that sleep

Can last for ever, but Sussex sheep were born

Cropping off the frost to help the sun

Imbrue creation with this glorious dawn.

           Wordsworth's welcome to Westminster Bridge

           These Sussex hills are where I'd rather live.

Brian Hick 16.3.09

©copyright Sally Hick 4.3.22