A wonderful horse, waiting for me
As beautiful as horses can be
A chestnut, red as Mars
When she jumps up, she hits the stars
A deep brown eye, like jarrah wood
When I give her aids, she does what she should
This horse is the only one for me
I'll ride her from Queensland to Northern Territory
This horse and I, when we meet first
I will ride her for all I'm worth
She'll gallop so fast, it really is frightening
This horse goes by the name of Lightning
FEEDING HORSES
She was four years old
Apples in bulging pockets from garden trees
Cold day in autumn
Stroll down to Paddy Sands’s horse pasture
Stop at five-bar gate and lift her up
Call or whistle - they come from a half-kilometre
Black, brown mares, one gelding
Jealous one tries to bite the others
Jostling for position at the gate
All those soft soft noses.....
They will permit stroking
If fed enough handfuls of grass
Grass tastes better from our hands
Than when cropped by them,
(Especially with tiny flowers of blue vetch).
Their big brown eyes close up
So peaceful and trusting
Tempting furry ears just out of reach for her
Turning cold now after half an hour
Spoil them with our apples before we go home
Show her how to hold back her thumb
So it doesn’t get bitten.
Walk home through Sands’s cropped hayfield
To tea and biscuits.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for Carol Brown's Contest "A Horse Story"
I read about this true story - it happened in Elizabethan England - and was so
upset that I needed to write this poem to get it off my chest. It's been published 3
times.
FIGHTING CHANCE
The mobs that packed the place
Were slavering for blood;
They sniffed it in the air
And, drooling, watched it flood.
The bears and bulls were dead;
A horse was dragged to fight,
It whinnied, reared and bucked,
Its nostrils flared in fright.
The pack was at the horse,
Their hungry jaws like traps;
That brutal, bloody scene
Was met with cheers and claps.
The gore of horse and dogs
Had turned the dust red-brown;
Those snarling dogs no match
For hooves that thundered down.
The dogs lay scattered round;
The roaring crowd was awed;
But then demanded more:
A second pack was called.
The horse, insane with fear,
Exhausted, fought to live;
The dogs were fresh, but he
Should have no more to give.
His will to live was strong;
The dogs were on his back;
Defeating mastiff jaws,
He tossed and killed that pack.
The rabble drunk on blood,
Addicted to it then,
Still called for more; the horse
Was hacked to death by men.
Jack Horne
To tame a horse in freezing winter
One plays a childish "hide and seek"
Caress its mane with future spring
and kiss the hazel moist with love.
Distract its pain with sandy gallops
Along the turquoise dreams of freedom
And while you heal the reddish wound
Recount the legend of the horse with wings.
There won't be saddles only clouds
That sometimes shed rainbows of tears
As darkness falls on killing fields
My soul is neighing as echoes cry...
Doc was a tiger stripped buckskin dun cow pony
Looked like the one Marshal Dillon rode
A fine piece of horse flesh he was
He was all heart, was no phony
He like to buck and loosen his load
That is the way Doc was
Rope a bull, Doc would pull it like a freight train
Never look back until the job was done
Pull it through prickly pear and cockel burrs
He knew his reward would be oats and grain
Once we rode to the barn at the setting sun
But, you did not want to ride Doc with spurs
One day he was fine, the next he was not
He was a tornado, hurricane and earth quake
All rolled into one, the sun of a gun
That is not the way he was taught
When he went to bucking, the world would shake
Doc was not always a lot of fun
He had a lot of cow in him, good around cattle
The best horse I ever rode, until he went the other way
Then he would make every bone in your skeleton ratttle
Riding Doc could be a battle
Cause Doc got his way
Two things that Doc did not like on his back, cowboys and saddles