Mr O’Malley was rather smelly
And used to frequently fart
Mrs Kelly owned a telly
And rode in a horse and cart.
Old Joe Blogs had lots of dogs
That used to poo in his yard
While Mr Scoggs looked like a frog
And resembled a tub of lard.
Mr Bruce looked like a goose
And spent the day grazing on grass
The trouble was it made his bowels loose
And he constantly wiped his ass.
But my favourite was Mavis Davis
Who always had jam scones for tea
Then after supper she’d have a big cuppa
And do copious amounts of wee.
All the President's Men
I read in the press that Donald Trump
The American president gives off a peculiar smell
that many dislike but act as if nothing
When the boy, the garbage man, picked up the waste
to the few who could hire him
He had a horse and cart, and invited me to ride
With him, he gave the rain so he could read the local
paper; I was proud to try to get the horse to walk
faster, but it knew the route and ignored me
The garage man had a peculiar smell, too, which is
normal, surrounded as he was by other people
detrious
Could it be that President Trump suffers from
the same problem
The taxi speeds down the highway
zig zagging to miss the potholes.
It slows as a horse and cart crosses,
followed by the owner's dog.
On the other carriageway people wait
hoping someone will give them a lift.
An old Cadillac smokes its way down the road.
In the town, buildings are like well-worn pairs of shoes –
they fit, still function but have seen better days.
But the people are well nourished, clothed and clean.
Smiles of genuine happiness are all around.
This is a country which lives to a different pulse -
Ché its heartbeat,
Fidel its lifeblood.
People are living the revolution where others have failed –
common wellbeing before personal gain,
society’s hallmark is equality and colour-blindness.
Educated and cultured, enjoyment is beyond the material.
Musical rhythms set the daily pace.
There is a determination to live and succeed despite hardship.
But is it only hardship when seen through Western eyes?
The freedom of spirit is to be admired.
But what does the future hold?
The greatest challenge is yet to come –
influx of other peoples from not so far away.
¡Cubana!
I open the oven door
to a blast of heat
and hot bread bulging
out of a high tin, brown, crusty
and ready to be taken out.
That smell wafts across
seventy years to when I can
remember bread being delivered
in a horse and cart.
Carrying a big
wicker basket full of hot bread,
the baker would run
house to house whilst his horse
ambled along at a pace
in perfect sync with the bakers
progress along the street.
Weekday mornings
I would wait out front
and rush the hot bread
inside for my mother to make me
sandwiches for lunch.
Mum always complained
that the bread was too hot
for cutting. I had a steaming
slice smothered in butter
before I left for school.
Big, thick, uneven slices
of bread holding metwurst
or cheese or peanut butter
greeted me when I opened
my lunchbox at school.
Bread was never better.
Nearing eighty, I keep
baking bread, writing poems,
as if trying to recapture
those pleasures still steaming
in the past before they go.
Not a Democrat
Is democracy good for individual freedom
a year when spring sprang early
he bought horse and cart and made a living
moving people's rubbish to the town's pit
He was not a man working from 9 to 5 in
a factory where underpaid workers slaved
putting macaroni in tomato sauce, into a tin
he had many children, but was not a pater
Familia, the children grew up with varied
success, some failed while others thrived
Besides, he liked gardening, in the poor
A section of the town people came to see his
display the beautiful flowers
In the night, people came picked the bloom
to give color to their meagre homes, that
It was what he had wanted
He lived a long life, and his wife loved him dearly
No, he was not a democrat
My old horse
I had been into town
Horse and cart
Bought two bags of chicken fodder
Going back to the farm, there are a few steep hills
The horse stopped, and I got out of the cart
Help pushing
I was 12 years old at the time
But the horse was proud of me
Ted is a novice when skating on ice
Kept slipping and falling twenty times twice
Body shattered and battered
And his teeth were all scattered
Prayed the tooth fairy will give a good price
Soups and soft food is all he can now eat
But he fancied something that is more sweet
Poured treacle in a large cup
Then quickly drank it all up
Feeling sick, vowed he would never repeat
He felt very hot and started to fret
From every pore he was pouring with sweat
He went outside to cool down
Some wasps where flying around
And saw his body as a sweet object
He screamed loudly, hollered, blubbered and cried
As the wasps were all stinging him with pride
His body grossly swollen
And dignity now stolen
Wished instead gone for a horse and cart ride
14.09.23
The momentary people
I think of the Roma people
there are many of them in the Algarve.
Horse and cart the bother irate drives
horse manure, good for the roses.
When a bank goes belly-up, you can’t sue
for misusing your deposit.
When airplanes are grounded
and cars rust on the roadside, no donkeys,
to plough fields, the Roma will continue
the journey towards the sunset,
How far is far?
To travel on horse and cart from Algarve
To Lisbon took days, but there were Inns
For a traveller to rest and stable the horses.
Not that many trekked from Algarve
seen as a throwback
From the days of the Muslims and poverty.
It was the British ex. Colonials, in the dwindling
Empire, who settled here; the Algarve is now
famous as a tourist destination.
I drove around, before motorways, with my dog
Portugal is a beautiful country.
On the motorway, there is nothing to see
Except for the rush of destination,
And Portugal is smaller than it used to be.
(An Addingham poem)
‘There! Where every curve
injects another memory.’
Analytic beauty that
nestled in verdant valley
allows the mind to review,
where archaic dry-stone walls
enhance the ancestral ghosts,
impeccable trees, nature’s
guardian to one’s heady days,
inscribed when lovers called.
Now historic brows lost
within the village face,
expressive meadows
from a bygone age did
grace now lay in waste,
every thistle upon
throstle nest cut down
and stone barns redundant.
For cement and brick
replace the gathering blooms,
fertile soil lay under macadam
and house numbers
supersede the hawthorn hedge,
and old ‘Bram’ on horse and cart
daily down moor lane
long gone and dead.
Oh. Them old manifestations
embedded, the labour
of many a village son,
where leaf and wood
do part but once a year,
after seasons of regrowth
give way to winter’s ascetic sun
that rolls across Rombald’s moor.
‘Oh. Yes, the sun, one thing
that man has not yet changed.’
© Harry J Horsman 2021
I've been keeping at a Detroit distance,
Maintaining that chary "Buffalo Stance",
Patient with ink-filled scalpel for instance,
Don't you dare me, I am on the off chance.
Now I've shaken that speare, I'm shaking free,
What's that you say? I'm out of my pined tree?
Like I said 'fore, of all colours praise be,
Just as time, it is all the same to me.
'Cause I'm at it again, making m'own art,
Remembering order of horse and cart,
So, are you singing that line, "Don't you start..."?
The hour's near here, I hope you've learned your part.
I'll beam you into my Renaissance fair,
See you be still before my blue-eyed glare.
Friday shopping
The farmer and I went shopping every Friday
(horse and cart) to a small town at the lowland, the shop had a stable.
This place had no café or bars; the farmers congregated in the stable
And drank from a bottle.
The farmer in an expansive mood gave pennies to buy ice-cream
It was not much of an ice- cream; I walked around looked into shop windows
Selling things, I would not dream of buying.
When I came back the cart has fully loaded the staff in the shop had
Seen to this, outside the town the farmer fell asleep I took the rain.
When we came to the steep hill, the horse stopped I had to get off and help push.
On the home stretch, the farmer woke up, took the rain chewed tobacco
And looked sober as a priest a Sunday morning.
Is it today now or yesterday still?
Is it time already for morning pill?
hazy light filters in through the window,
as crimson gathers over distant hill!
Can’t tell early dawn from the evening glow,
for me time stands still and the day is slow,
from downstairs sound of kitchen plying food,
my rumbling hunger signals time to go!
I walk in to dinning hall, panelled wood,
smiling faces greet me as sweet as could,
Coffee, bread, favourite jam and honey,
they wish me a morning, morning so good!
Some days I get visitors too many,
Some other days there are hardly any,
young girl comes often with two little tots,
When daughter’s name fails you, it’s not funny!
My son is very tall has grown so smart,
Like his dead mother very good at heart,
He brings little ones to play with grandpa,
they ride on my back playing horse and cart!
flickering thoughts..how memory ages raw,
life as it flows has to obey time’s law,
yet Love finds a way to overcome this flaw,
Love finds a way to overcome this flaw!
Written 06/August/2020
Honourable mention
Sponsor Brian Strand
‘Strand New any form any theme(18)’ Contest
The Roma
I can’t stop thinking of the Roma people
There are many of them in Algarve,
Horse and cart to the annoyance of car drivers.
Horse manure their only pollution.
When a bank goes belly up, you can’t sue them
For misusing your deposit.
When all aeroplanes have stopped flying and
Cars are rusting by the roadside, and there are no donkeys
To plough the fields, the Roma people will continue
Their journey towards the sunset.
I knew of a family
In an unpainted small house
In the poorest part of the town
The man of the house
Had met his love, Maria
Together they produced 8 children
I wondered where they slept.
The oldest child’s name was Kalle
And became my mother’s boyfriend
The man of the house a made living
Driving horse and cart emptying
Peoples rubbish taking it to the dump.
He had a beer in the cart
And sang when driving to the stable
Where he spent time grooming
The horse and feeding it.
He sat on a crate reading the papers
Which he could not do at home.
Still, he loved his Maria and I saw them
Holding hands, she had no teeth
“poverty” and had gone fat.
Yet it was a happy home we celebrated
Our Christmases’ there.
Kalle, who liked to wear a suit
Got a flat with a toilet in another town
And we didn’t see him so often.
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