Other Horses, Other Waters

ol Dorg an oi stand on dung maxim
wees be waarm nearly
fer the valley steams
early morn earthworm smells

and black Dorg growls like
at sounds in the dun
like an ee wants home

and oi pulls out that spile outen maxim
doent see the sunrise on The Hill
and listens fer that there vermin in trap

and i sees that smaart vermin
but nots as smaarts as i be e hung iself
in the wire i dids set by hen house

an black Dorg e hungs back
cos the vermin screech spitting
and e wanted in and Dorg looked at i
like leave it ain't worth it but i says
penneyhen was worth it somewhens

and i says hold ard Dorg
and the vermin he snaps like
and wees slip quick like in the slub
so's not get taken by thems sharp teeth
and hees all teeth allus abart
and theys be red in sunrise teeth
and i's swing that spile down
but it seems slow too slow cos e spin      ssssspins quick e does
and his eyes I knows e knows innis eyes
but I hears him spit fierce like an evil bloody bug ger
he asked fer it soas i do it
and the varmin still scream at us
and i brings it down so dam hard and dam hard and dam hard and dam hard
till i hears his scull crack
and hes not fierce any mores and e lies there sad like
and black Dorg e was back in the yarrd long ways ago
and i was pleased cos it was a vixen
and her belly moved for jus a while
and they could die       in comfort like.

© Nick Coleman

Commentary:

On reading C Carver's Horse Under Water, I was set to thinking about the fact that so often poetry is written by outsiders; the intellectual parson who imagines that he knows what is in the heart of the ploughman. Has Caroline Carver really stabbed a shark to death? Has she expressed in words what the shark killer was really feeling? Or is it all just the same as the fake native art for the gawping tourists? Does it matter so long as it makes each of us stop and ponder? I know that I will always be an Outsider, yet maybe I am more of a Sussex peasant than anything else so I tried to copy her style about a real brutal incident, in the vernacular of my valley.

Apologies to this year's winner of the National Poetry Competition, Caroline Carver. You can find her 'Horse Under Water' on the Poetry Society's website https://poetrysociety.org.uk/.

Nick Coleman
Bonfire contributor