"farrier" poems
"Democracy is the lesser of all evils."
Says the Liberal.
The Libertarian.
The Corinthian.
The Macedonian.
The Farrier.
The Squire.
The Stoic.
The Astronomer.
The Ornithologist.
The Eschatologist.
The Augur.
The Retiarius.
The Hoplite.
The Centurion.
The Governor.
The General.
The Senator.
The Orator.
The Assassin.
The Emperor.
The Ferryman.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 8:54 PM UTC
David Farrier shoes horses for a living
Found himself in a life worth giving
His whole life to see them from the gate
And finish in life still believing that this race is not just worth trying
But a pursuit of passing on the baton of Faith!
He may pound it and nail it hard but David just won't let you run with your hooves dusted
Oh how he used to shoe us eight times but be filled with the greatest gratitude as he was healed and learned that our hooves are two-divided
Oh I think I need a pat on the back
My hair doesn't feel like feeling the wind against it
Oh that doesn't even rhyme
But a few knows the songs of David as he was born in Rock Bottom
He circled the town eight times and washed his hands as he allows himself very often
Born with a so-called 'natural blindfold disease' he found himself a Savior clothed in the purest of fleece
He asked David to hang for a while and His hand shaked with eternal availability
While His friendship promised milk, cookies and eternal security
Oh I might need a pat on the back
The open gates of change welcomed by a gunshot noise usually freaks me out
Oh can someone get me a rhyme book?
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 11:24 AM UTC
many of his posts tilted
like trees tired of the wind; wires sagged,
red rusted, but still jabbed the errant cow
when duty called
three quarters a century
he rode the same trail; of late,
he had gone afoot, the saddle too heavy
for him to heft
walking, he reconnoitered
the tracks with more care--hooves of his myriad steers,
a few equine signs of the farrier’s labor
still there, fast fading
his boot prints were
more numerous now, and sometimes
tamped down by the few beasts left
in his herd
across the line lay his dead
neighbor’s pastures, peppered with mesquite,
pocked by fire ant holes; no livestock grazed, but the giant turbines whined, white whipsaws slashing not timber, but blue sky
driven by the relentless winds,
they called to him, in chanted chorus, issuing a premonition:
one day soon, your fence will fall, and the path you trod
will bear no new tracks for other souls to read
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 10:40 PM UTC
LAUREL AND THE MARE
It was spring and Southern Ontario air tasted of trees.
A pregnant mare escaped to the woods from her prison on the estrogen farm.
She had long, curled hooves and cracked skin.
She came to Laurel and her two children at the edge of Beamsville.
Laurel had no work, a jumble of painted canvasses in the porch, her father's
Hired man's stucco cottage. Laurel, Hadley, Malcolm wore ski jackets and jeans.
The horse loved to exercise at night in the yard.
They combed her and gave her oats. They couldn't afford a vet so they
Called a farrier horse dentist and she fixed the skin and hooves and filed the teeth.
They hung a trouble light on a nail and talked to the horse at night.
The farm smelled of animal again: you know the power of grass breath.
They read library horse books and what's left of the family
Sang with the radio in the barn. Those might have been holy days,
They were feast days, and the children were pulled away from
American television by the strong and willing horse.
Torn French bread and good cheap Beamsville Magnotta wine on the picnic table,
Wine for the children, too, and they all read in their beds after dark.
Laurel went to bed thinking: "It's La Vie Boheme for us."
She gloated at the return of ******
Feeling and the possibility of love and laughed her
Coarse, sweet, hee-haw laugh.
Paul Anthony Hutchinson
This poem was published in Canadian Poetry
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 11:19 PM UTC
*The quotient of blue in marriage with shimmering green , jasper plow land surrounded in eastern pine motifs and whitewashed barrier
The morning clang of 'smith , cooper and farrier
Days of black pig iron , cured oak and strap leather
Messages that forever ride the backcountry Autumn zephyrs*
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 1:02 PM UTC
To the planter offering his vegetable harvest by the roadside ..
To the purveyor of fine laying hens I pray quick exchange for her tireless labor .. Morning , Noon into night ..
A moment of thought for Dairyman , Plowman and Farrier ..
My invocation for abundant harvest , tranquil rest and picturesque sunsets ..
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 8:22 PM UTC
it is a dusty lane, as requested.
new flight taken, wildly singing, in all directions,
while we mowed, while the ants invaded.
as i knelt, the grave digger came down
again. it is about time, he said,
laughing.
tethered the horses at the gate,
then the farrier came.
it is my brother’s birthday
today.
sbm.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 10:52 AM UTC
*Do you see the caricatures neath the full moon pines
The ghost of General McIntosh , spirits of Creek hunters along
the river brush
Old Timers whittling song flutes from bottom cane
Farrier's shoeing mules , work horses straining at the
crack of the whip , ferryboats treading shoals across the
foggy Flint
The voices of children in one room schoolhouses
The rousing , morning bell of little towns , the clap
of field wagons
A fiddler sawing a piedmont 'Rag'
The rustle of picking field peas with Croaker bags*
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 7:31 PM UTC