Poetry Forum

Horse

You've been on the lookout each time I pass,
tail to the group. Today you are coming over,
white streak all awry, nostrils warming the winter.

Jacketed against the cold, you expect
what you came for, and bump me hard
when all I have is a hand to run along

inside your mane and a bright orange
French wool scarf. You breathe tender air
on my neck, then, bored, reach

through the fence, feeling for grass.
I am like you these days, in less of a hurry,
scant passion to squander. I watch you

stick your neck out, improbably snaking
horse-head with naked eye-whites, munching
a banana skin pulled from the nettles.

I move on, shadowed for a while, until
you turn aside once more, mute
beyond the millrace as the sun goes down.

Welcome to PG DB.

This is a very nice first post: full of evocative horsey detail and tinged with sadness.

Hope you'll stick around.

Cam

Thank you, Cam - it seemed like a good place to be

Luisetta

Welcome, Luisetta

You describe a beautiful and touching scene.

Annoyingly, I can't make any suggestions except, possibly to think
of an alternative to "as the sun goes down".

Nice one
Geoff

Hi DB,

Nicely worked 'temptation' allusion in the 4th stanza: garden of eden reference.

stick your neck out, improbably snaking
horse-head with naked eye-whites, munching
a banana skin pulled from the nettles.

plural connotations abound here.

and

scant passion to squander

I liked the way you identify with the horse's life; the carefree lifestyle and his risk taking, the horse shown you way -- perhaps you admire this-- there is a feeling of reluctance, some disillusionment of past emotional failures creeping.


very good

Arco

Good first post.

"I am like you these days, in less of a hurry,
scant passion to squander."

Adds that dimension that takes the poem from mere description (fine description) to another level.

Nice one.

Kris

Welcome, indeed!! -- although we have 'met' already in the comments section on another poem. I was taken by the carefully weighted observations in this poem, the accretion of telling little details that creates and rounds off a picture. The last stanza ...

I move on, shadowed for a while, until
you turn aside once more, mute
beyond the millrace as the sun goes down.

... is particularly good!!

Hi. I think the use of the present tense and the unhurried development of the encounter do a good job of communicating the subject, that languor which is only explicitly mentioned in line 12. I love the "banana-skin pulled from the nettles" which has a sad kind of comedy to it.

I was a little confused by "the group". At first I thought you were with the Ramblers' Association. Not sure what you call collective horses - "herd" doesn't seem quite right either. "Nostrils warming the winter" is superb.

"Jacketed against the cold" - this seems to be slightly out of place here. What does being jacketed have to do with the horse's expectation? Obviously nothing, but that's what the sentence-structure implies, to me. We already know it's winter. I think you can leave this out and use the space for something more relevant.

"French wool" - so what? This doesn't enhance the image for me. Orange scarf is all I need to know. "Tender air" works well, a slightly queer epithet when you think about it.

As Kris says, the connection in S4 makes the poem. Nice one.

It's a testament both to your metaphoric rendering and to the way my mind deviates that I managed to read an entirely sexual metaphor in this: a story of two people who know each other, ah, reassuringly well, right down to the banana-skin getting caught in the nettles.

CC

Both, perhaps, but mainly the latter.

Collective nouns for horses

Ramuda of horses (don't blame me - I looked it up!)
Team
Pair
Herd
Stable
Harass
Field/meet (racehorses)

I had always wondered because herd sounds so wrong. Horses are too noble to be lumped together in a common herd.

Cool poem by the way.

Cheers
dave

This is very horsy, and all the better for it. I read it as an enjoyable brief encounter on a winter's day, no deeper meanings, but vivid for all that. Echoes of Montaigne's cat? Or, on a slightly different level, Delaney's donkey?

I tend to agree with Geoff: as the sun goes down is a pretty generic ending - you might as well finish with "That's all folks!" - but mute beyond the millrace is a lovely phrase.

It's funny, from your critical comments I'd imagined your first poem would be a fierce questioning thing. And you've posted this beautiful little vignette about stroking a horse on a winter walk. Clearly, you are multi-faceted.

Welcome anyway.

David

Thanks for all these very rich comments - I agree with the criticism of the sun going down but b*****ed if I know what to put instead

The people who saw echoes of human relationship in this were right, that was my intention, as were the echoes of meaning, but I wasn't driving at anything in particular.

Gosh I hope I haven't got myself a reputation as an attack dog in less than a week. If so, then you're all being very kind to me.

Luisetta

This poem has an outstanding feature - it is immediate. Jesus, I'm so fed up with tripping over impenetrable and tortured gibberish! It's a breath of fresh air.

Three cheers for immediacy. Billy Collins would be proud.