Horse - Poem

Cheesy, West Coast, Nineteen-Eighties, Hair Metal,

A genre that refuses to die.

Why?

Horse.

In the singular:
Crazy, backing Neil Young.

In the classic movie,
A Man Called Richard Harris.

In the plural:
Crazy as The Osmonds

And because the night
Belongs to Patti Smith

I wander the streets.
_____

I'm looking for a poem to hang off the word "horse".

I self-medicated, possibly overdid it, and found one.

Only it wasn't a poem it was a horse.

It was dark, I was staring out over Dogpoo Park
And there it was, in South to South East London.
I'm no expert on horses but it didn't look happy.

Of all the places
A horse could be
Living wild and free

This horse lived on an estate

An estate of houses
Not one of flats,
Which are much better suited
To small dogs and cats,

But it wasn't happy.

Neither was it tied to a stake
Nor otherwise restrained from escape

It just stood there looking miserable
And I don't do miserable poems.
_____

I had wasted an hour
Of slowly bloating
From over consumption
Of beans over bacon
On a bed of toast.

Medical professionals may suggest
My discomfort to be due to
A Stowford Press
Chaser.
But,
What do
They really know?

I blame the bread people.

Baked beans are incapable of
Conspiratorial imagination and
Bacon rules the real world like
Cats rule the internet.

It can only be the bread people.

I looked up from my pad.
The horse was gone.
I went inside
For pint
Two.
______

Expanded by now to the point of almost rupture
I concluded my observations of all and sundry
And set off in the general direction of my
Hillside Retreat, via coffee with friends.

Yes, coffee. I was in a bad way.
______

Today came and I woke into not long after noon

I had need
Of a lead
For my guitar.

Allowing for Sunday Trading
If I were quick I could make it
There and back without being
Freaked out by members of
The holidaying public.

It was worth a shot.

I went out wearing more pockets than I would at home,
Fewer than jeans and jacketed of an evening.

Carrying adequate supplies for any
Adventurous opportunity
That may arise

But not
A
Pad and pen

I was reliant upon technology
For the recording of my thoughts

Un-edited and without Photoshopping
I paste that world here. I bring you:

Awe inspiring breastage
On the chestage
Of a man

Enough to make an
Artist's eyes
Bleed

But, still, nothing about horses.

Waves of humans crush funnelled
Through the streets from the beach

I am pleased to report
The days of the booty-short
Are far from over.

But, still, nothing about horses.

Deep tanned,
Their passions fanned
By what passes for the sun
Our dearly beloved currant bun

On high and on come down beyond.

But, still, nothing about horses.

Father and son
Out having fun

The young beaming smiles
The older quite happily miles
Away in his twenty something
Years before his son existed

What does he strain to see?
It's not the here and now.

But, still, nothing about horses.

Ladies, gentlemen,
Those of us in between,

The ridiculous,
The faintly ridiculous
And those who really do
Put the effort in.

I salute you all.

But, still, nothing about horses.

I have been watching day people,
Those upon whom the sun's rays
Fall directly without reflection
From the moon

These people are strange

But, still, nothing about horses.

I walk backwards from City to Seaside,
To a vista unchanged since the
Dawn of the deckchair

Where the saucy postcards live
And I find my self wrestling
The clichéd urge to
Make battered
Sausage
Jokes.

But, still, nothing about horses.

I don't think daylight falls
On the tables outside
Of my local pub
Ever, 24, 7
It's a
Safe place
For nightpeople
Caught out by the
Clock or the season.

But, still, nothing about horses.

I am walking down the sunny side,
The other side of the street,
Across the road from
My zombie
Crew.

I pause at what will later be
A drunkards' bench
And after a
Bed

Where some poor sod
Will rest his weary
Head.

But, still, nothing about horses.

I am home now.

Safe in the knowledge
There is one word
That cannot
Inspire
Me,

Horse.

© Po 2015