Snakehill

 

We grind keys on sandstone sacraments

(names dates loves and was eres)

Territorially recorded, awaiting time’s erosion

Through nights and days this hide away

For anyone escaping

Something

 

Dates far back

We find a rock dated 1952

Arrow piercing heart

Archaic symbols

Solidify its truth

 

As I scrape is a cock

After Ste’s fresh ground name

I survey the open kingdom

And wish that home was this

Mundane

 

 

 

 

4 generations

 

A hundred years ago today

My great grandfather was born

A man who could carry telegraph poles

On his shoulder

To cut up

For the fire

Then he gave birth to my grandad

A man who wore a ring on his little finger

That my dad pulls out

And shows me how

It’s too big

For even his thumb

Then my old man is a man of stories

His mates tell me down the pub

The best right hook

You’ve ever seen

Knock anyman down

In one punch

And I sit at home

With a cup of tea writing

About their past glories

Cos’ manliness

Is no longer

Rewarded

 

 

 

 

The Estate

 

In placid light

Eyes see cars in Slumber

Cats prowl discretely

Hiding in Cold Crevices and Shadows

The dull yellow glow

Lighting estates of lucid delirium

 

Pristine lawns advocate 9 to 5

Nice families’ search for Suburbia

Whilst unused items lay in Gardens discarded

Next to caravans with boarded windows

Half-filled scrap-van is dormant at no.32

Too old for a gallop, to Skip tomorrow it’ll canter

 

In this mute, still dark

A silhouette looms

A figure built for power and strength

Its muscles twitch as it moves

Its hooves chik-chik as it walks

It echoes every step

Like kettle steam jets, its breath is seen

By only the cob itself

Quarantine snuffs and huffles

Allergic to the fight for the light

 

It leaves its marks in the snow

For wonder tow encapsulate the mystic being

Oblivious to what creature has left them

Or where it might be going

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Gibson grew up in the feral plains of an ex-mining village, Newstead, in the shadow of Lord Byron’s grandeur, this juxtaposition may have been what started him on his literary path. Currently the fiction editor for Hand Job Magazine, he tries to encourage the lesser voiced truths of our society.