Today’s poem

TEN O’CLOCK HORSES

They came every bedtime the children to scare, Hooves sparking like flint on the stones, ‘You must be asleep by ten,’ they’d declare ‘Or we’ll stomp you and break all your bones.’

Rearing and shrieking with eyes of blood red, Manes flaring they’d race down the roads, Grabbing each kid they found out of bed Knowing well all the children’s abodes.

But I couldn’t believe the very next day, As I struggled to wake from my slumber, That the soft clip clop of the milkman’s dray Was the cause of last night’s thunder.

From my window I watched the old grey mare, Head bowed in the miserable sleet, Breath turning to mist in the dawning air, As she battled uphill through the street.

(Bare handed my dad would seize its dung, Black gold to plants yet to flower, No mind to its feel or the stench in his lung, Through folklore he’d learned of its power).

Proudly he stands kerbside in full sight, Waiting for gentry dressed up to the nines, For some of his kind seldom see light, Held captive for years in the hell of the mines.

The white blazed bay laden with ale, Queen’s Head the first stop then on to the Ship. Kegs lifted by men both hearty and hale, While calmly she waits, one eye on the whip.

Still haunted by terrors that came in the night, Unblinkered brown eyes sometimes weep, Fed and stabled she sinks to a well-earned respite, Then thankfully drifts into sleep.

But on Sunday they wake to church bell peals And although half asleep, bide awhile. Today they’ll run free with grass ’neath their heels, I swear if they could they would smile.

In the towns and the cities on a rare still night, When streets are hushed and folk abed, Of the ten o’clock horses you may yet catch sight, Hear the snort and clip-clop of friends long dead.

Joy James, Nottingham.