"hoofbeats" poems
Parsimony Antipathy or Prudent Hostility
Locked-up Cuspid Of the One Celled Organism
As the Augury tends to its Auspices oddities
One Weak Ordeal and your reward will be handsome
Ceteris paribus when Ockham’s blade gets dull
Get a loan from your Karma or come back as amoebae
Hearts won’t be practical until they’re unbreakable.
But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows
Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end
But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle
And you can have him for a price less than a penny
Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes
Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed
But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches
By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead
Salivating tadpoles for Hegemony crickets
All imprisoned here with this repressionist peasant
By a singular stroke into Jove’s black booklet
Lucidly errant, who hasn’t been flippant?
Clever Arachne, my love, oh thou immodest spider
All I ever wanted, she picked a fine time to leave us
My days squandered eavesdropping Apocalypse riders
But if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
Sometime this week I’ll hang from the gallows
Every drip of the tallow brings closer the end
But I’ve got this imp secured in this bottle
And you can have him for a price less than a penny
Yeah, I’ve got a genie who’ll grant all your wishes
Just pay for this bottle and your family gets fed
But act fast, for soon I **** my last twitches
By this time tomorrow I could very well be dead
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 11:29 AM UTC
awakened cows chewing
a mountain pass
dawn warms their massive eyelash rows
clinging drops of dew
spark in rhythm with the cud
darkness rumbles distant now
clouds dispersed to other nights
while metaphoric bull unhinged resounds
the cosmic rut
must i hide my love for this
unweave my judgment from my sight?
what in me defies all sacred holiness forever sung?
bees will ravish even newly opened buds
who am i to battle with the lightning's surge?
presumtuous coverings
can net me willing lustful
stars i see a field i open fertile
ecstaticly unblessed enough
lost heroic i had thought to know
pretends a second thrum
i see in random eyes the breaking sky
and lightning branches over snaking crevices
a sound of faultlines folding free
tectonic sexplay deep
in lava belly
far behind the summit mount--
there i see the sun a base as well
earthen seedbeds heating heights of life
space is cracked!
vast width enwombs the narrowness i preen
in nervure's shine,
a sponge mycelial with soak of raining
carbon underground
the drumming hoofbeats shake and settle
days dehiscing spinning sun
to somber eve in active rest
dreaming pasture real
within a trailing effort's ease
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
You are the amplified heartbeat
Pounding through my head
Like hoofbeats, predicting a stampede
A wild thing, just tamed
Baring teeth at the hand that feeds
and slowly forgetting
That the blood singing in your veins
Was meant for more than cages.
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 3:49 PM UTC
At midnight, out on the cobblestones
There’s the sound of rolling wheels,
And a shadow cast on a window pane
From the road outside, it steals,
A wagon, black in its livery,
And pulled by a single horse,
As black as the heart of the man that steers,
Whipped up from the watercourse.
From down in a tiny inlet, deep
Enough for a man of war,
A French corvette is lying, waiting,
Just metres away from shore,
It carried a cargo of brandy, wine,
And cases full of tea,
Smuggled into the tiny cove
Its goods all duty free.
Now it’s waiting upon the tide
To turn the ship around,
Its cargo gone in the wagon now,
Headed for higher ground,
And then the galloping hoofbeats echo
Over the cobblestones,
The crack of a couple of pistols and
The air is filled with groans.
The horse breaks free of its halter and
The wagon rolls back down,
It’s shadow passing my window pane
A second time around,
It rolls back into the harbour while
I hear the boom of guns,
Firing from the French Corvette
As it hoists its sail, and runs.
Once a year on the fifth of June
And late into the night,
Whenever the moon is lying low
And casting down its light,
I see the shadows and hear the sounds
From that deadly time of yore,
As the ghostly French Corvette departs
And sails from the ghostly shore.
And glistening out on the cobblestones
There’s a dampness, looks like mud,
That dissipates in an hour or two,
A pool of the smuggler’s blood,
I dare not go to the window, look,
Or even open the door,
In case I’m carried away by them
From two hundred years before.
David Lewis Paget
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 1:51 AM UTC
Racing across the hilly meadows,
Racing across the dusty plains,
Scorching sun up high above them,
Their bodies drenched with cooling rains.
Not caged in with wooden fences,
Land as far as the eye can see,
Independent of man’s ways,
They are free.
Hoofbeats pounding the Earth,
Thundering through the sky,
Not held back by man’s contraptions,
This is where they live and die.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 8:07 PM UTC
Keith W Fletcher
July 28 2016
In spirit I'm the Dark Horse
Fading into shadows of doubts
Optimism rides upon my back
Yet it's not enough to turn me
From those obscure routes
Where I too often find my solace
In the echoes of my silent world
As I run from my own hoofbeats
That I have been chasing
None hears the distant thud
From far below those lofty heights
Where I so often find
Myself being hurled
In absence I'm an empty space
Where once a possibility had existed
Like those gentle summer winds
That moves along unnoticed
Until dust or debris swirls around Acknowledging the air
That in my passing through...
... has just been twisted
In memory I am a faded color
Where no reference of what was... .....allows comparison
So no photograph
Or artistic rendering
Can ever capture the true identity...
....Of a shadow lost in shadow
Once the fading out has begun
In legacy I left a trail
Well worn and beaten wide
As I never took
The straight and narrow
I've always preferred...
... to move from side to side
So please...do not illuminate
The beloved shadows zones
Along the trail
For these are the places to take more time
Feeling the presence of all the ghosts
Those reminders of my dead dreams
I've left along there
To haunt me
Reminders of those times I fail
But that cliff edge
Where I so often hurled myself
To crash below
In muted
And too often painful
Solitaire Evolutions
That step off spot
Where my tracks end
That is mine and mine alone
Just as is ...
That Hallowed Ground...
... where I land
And where I lay... until I stand
To dust myself off.. or weep
So should I choose to curse my soul
I want no one else around
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 4:48 AM UTC
Look.
Revelation underfoot
And overhead,
Within
And without,
Cycle
And system,
Adaptation and
Resolute resistance,
Wind-whipped ocean
And aspen dance.
Listen.
Lightning
And thunder,
Sizzling fire
Of new earth,
Blue whale
And bird song,
Thundering hoofbeats
and hail from the sky,
Water spilling
past rocks and high places.
Breathe
Night blooming jasmine
and lavender lilac,
Cinnamon stick
And orange blossom,
Rain soaked air
And nighttime heat.
Puppies
and children at play,
Crisp air
Of mountain pass,
Salt spray
and desert dryness,
Oak fire
and incense cedar.
These illuminate,
Speak,
And carry the scent
Of something far bigger,
Much grander,
Ever richer.
Indeed,
We see the broken,
Hear the hard,
Inhale the bitter,
But to say that these define our world,
And shape the edges of existence...
No.
No, we must not let our senses dull
And fail to notice,
Interpret,
Give thanks for
the sight, sounds, and taste of all that is good.
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 1:45 PM UTC
I've got an invitation to the Boston Tea Party
I'm letting you know in case you want to come with me
I heard from some friends that it's going down in history
Don't think about it twice
Just say yes
Whoa! Uh oh!
No taxation without representation
Whoa! Uh oh!
These patriot's they know how to show a good time.
Whoa! Uh oh!
What Georgie gonna think when he wakes up in the morning?
Pass me the quill, dear Hancock.
Thomas Jefferson, he has got a way with words
He really makes you believe that this dream's gonna work
(Maybe if you forget that these Brits rule the world)
I'll sign the declaration
It's all I have left to believe in
Whoa! Uh oh!
Paul Revere he says the British are coming!
Whoa! Uh oh!
Can't you hear, the belfry's bells are ringing
Whoa! Uh oh!
Pick up guns we're off to Lexington
Hoofbeats are flying out to the night.
Wait.
Here I stand.
At this Battle of Bunker Hill.
Stop.
Close your eyes.
What happend to our sanity?
Civility?
Humanity?
(It went out the door with our freedom.)
Whoa! Uh oh!
We don't need a King we have our own voices
Whoa! Uh oh!
Life and Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
Whoa! Uh oh!
Save the date, July 4th 1776
US of A, it's independence.
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
Autumn
windmills churning
apple cider, hayrides/
leaves crunching under lithe hoofbeats
pumpkins peep from drab earth; sun in slate sky
breath to view with the naked eye
burnt pine flickers linger
in requiem
autumn.
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 12:21 PM UTC
When I first met you in the wood
T'was like the hunter found his hart
I searched for you my swimmer pale
Like Ahab searched for his white whale
I walked for long with bow in hand
And quiver full of cupids arrows
Like the hind you were so quick
And I lost you in the forest thick
But sometimes I would see a hint
The sound of footfalls in dead sprint
Then I would try to catch and run
Thinking that my prize was won
But always you had come and gone
The most elusive adult faun
I never could quite shoot my dart
And never could quite hit your heart
In sadness I left to go
And heard your gentle hoofbeats slow
I turned and looked beyond the snow
And I saw you there my lovely doe
So timidly you looked at me
Simply wanting to be free
So I stayed my hand and bow
And waited in the cold white snow
For now I know that if you chase
The hunted will seek out more space
An eternity it seemed
While my breath in cold air steamed
And then you took a step towards me
But still I waited by the tree
And then you were by my side
Affection for you I could not hide
Finally I have got you deer
Now please will you forget your fear
For I will always be right here
If you my love will be my dear
Feb 28, 2010
Feb 28, 2010 at 10:04 PM UTC
When Princess Lemon went to bed that night
she knew for sure that everything had changed.
She knew the pounding hoofbeats would pursue
the quivering night-time body of her dreams,
would shake her upside-down and inside-out,
would set the tempo of her shuddering sleep.
The horseman spurs the horseflesh to obey
his strict command: "Up now, and clear the hedge!"
Together, man and beast perform as one,
combining will and power; and at speed.
The huntsman and the Princess are a pair.
They dance to Pan as only lovers can
and twine their bodies in the open air.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 9:15 AM UTC
‘Be waiting up at the window,’ said
The note he sent by hand,
‘I’ll come and collect you at midnight,’
Said the note, ‘the way we planned.’
She heard the clatter of hoofbeats in
The courtyard down below,
And waved to him from the window
As she seized her portmanteau.
She quickly skipped down the staircase
Holding both her shoes in hand,
Trying to avoid the clatter as
She raced down to her man,
It only took but a moment then
To seat her on his horse,
And gallop out of the courtyard on
Their way to the watercourse.
A light appeared in an upper room
And they heard her father roar,
‘By God, you’ll pay for your insolence,
I told you once before.’
He’d promised her to a Banker’s clerk
Who had paid him for her hand,
Though she had said that it wouldn’t work,
She had bowed to his command.
But then the couple had plotted,
He was sworn to break her free,
‘If anyone is to marry, it
Will just be you to me.’
They headed down to the water where
The sloop, ‘The Esperance’,
Was waiting for their arrival
Before sailing off to France.
It took an hour to set the sails
And wait for the tide to turn,
They hid themselves below the deck
In a cabin at the stern,
But soon the thunder of hoofbeats said
They must have been found out,
For then they heard her father’s call,
‘It’s best that you come out,’
He ventured slowly out on the deck
To reason with the man,
Then saw the flash of the powder that
Was loaded in the pan,
The ball cut straight through his windpipe,
Left him sprawling on the deck,
While she was dragged from below, and screamed
‘All curses on your neck.’
He locked her into an attic room
And he wouldn’t let her out,
Though she would wail, and would scream at him,
And curse and yell, and shout,
She waited up till the early hours
Then she set her room alight,
The fire spread till they all were dead
From that single candlelight.
It sits as a blackened ruin now
With soot on the standing walls,
A testament to a daughter who
Refused to be overruled,
And still some nights when the moon is bright
There’s a whisper, close at hand,
‘I’ll come and collect you at midnight,
And we’ll leave, the way we planned.’
David Lewis Paget
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 8:38 PM UTC
I sit to write—
no, wait—where was I?
Oh right, the page, the pen, the—
oh, did I feed the dog this morning?
I can’t remember,
but I remember that song I heard last week,
the one with the bassline that sounded like footsteps
on a quiet street at dusk.
I should look it up,
but not now. Not now. Focus.
I try to corral the scatter,
wrestle it into something linear,
but my thoughts sprint off track,
like wild horses too proud to be tamed,
hoofbeats echoing against
the thin walls of my mind.
I hear a whisper of focus,
a fragile, fleeting thing,
but then...
did I pay that bill?
Or was that last week?
The thought derails me,
and suddenly I’m plunging
into twenty different tunnels,
each one darker than the last.
I try to speak,
but the words trip over themselves.
Half a sentence here,
a dangling thought there,
and I wonder if people see
the tangled mess beneath my skin,
if they hear the static,
feel the weight
of a world
moving too fast to grasp.
But sometimes,
in the chaos,
there is brilliance.
A spark, a flicker,
a thread of gold in the storm.
It’s in the moments when my mind leaps,
connecting dots no one else sees—
a kaleidoscope of half-thoughts
somehow finding form.
Still,
the struggle doesn’t end.
It’s hard to explain
what it’s like to live
with a brain that never stops moving,
that stumbles off the rails
just when you need it to stay steady.
But here I am,
sitting again,
lost and found all at once.
I will finish this poem,
or maybe I won’t—
oh, I should clean my desk.
Where was I?
Right.
I sit to write.
Aug 26, 2025
Aug 26, 2025 at 10:29 PM UTC
I want to manipulate feelings, he says
I want to make them feel things, to make them cry, to make them die, he says
He wants to make scenes in front of fire hydrants and dance to the sound of wild hoofbeats
He wants to make them cry, in awe of the beauty screened before them, the sunset awash in an inhuman glow
He wants to make them die inside as the heroine is killed, but dramatically makes her comeback all through the means of a tilted lens
He wants to make them feel things
And he, of all people, alone, has the power.
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 11:53 AM UTC
All about me I remember,
The warrior, the wise teacher,
The prophets gazing at the stars,
The reddish vivid glow of Mars -
And I'm reminded of their muscular form;
Thick-skinned and proud, one born
To the region of Magnesia or Mount Pelion,
An army of spears sharp and long.
From every side they came,
The longbow with steady aim,
The warriors pointed silver swords,
The hoofbeats pounding came towards.
Then, I closed my eyes and awaited death,
Icy-cold and dark, the breath
Of my lungs heavy in my chest,
A befitting end to a perilous quest.
Sep 14, 2023
Sep 14, 2023 at 12:01 PM UTC
I can speak the words of another
With the conviction
Of a thousand horsemen
Riding into battle
But my own words I say soft
And they are lost in the thunderous
Hoofbeats
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 9:57 PM UTC
The hoofbeats come through the mist at night
And the sound of clattering wheels,
While Ursula sits at the Inn in fright,
And we all know how that feels,
There’s not been a coach for a hundred years
On these cobblestones, lining the lanes,
Not since the smugglers used a hearse
To carry their ill-gotten gains.
And though she may peer through the pebble glass
When the mist lies thick in the night,
She hopes that she’ll see the phantom pass
But it’s always out of sight,
A little beyond the light that beams
From the lamp that filters in,
To the darkened room in its haze of gloom
That they call the Smugglers Inn.
There’s a story told from the days of old
When the customs lay in wait,
Their pistols drawn just before the dawn
When the hearse would meet its fate,
And Captain Sly with his one good eye
Was shot as he hit the ground,
While Ursula hears his cry of fear
As the customs gather round.
She only hears the scuffle of feet
And the neigh of a frightened horse,
That echoes out of the distant past
While the mist obscures its course,
But out, like a smear on the cobblestones,
And just where the Captain stood,
It takes a day just to fade away,
A pool of the Captain’s blood.
It’s only whenever a mist appears
That she hears the clattering wheels,
And thinks of death as she holds her breath
To know what the mist reveals,
For after the Captain has hit the ground
In front of the Smugglers Inn,
The door will open without a sound
For that’s when the ghosts come in.
David Lewis Paget
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 1:04 AM UTC
Dream horses
Come to me tonight.
Take me away from here
And show me sights.
Show me the cloud valleys
And canyons of thunder
While I pull up the covers
And hide deep under.
Dream horses
Let me ride with you tonight.
If we ride out together
I know everything will be all right.
I’ll laugh and call out to you
And all the worries I had today
Will fall behind our happy pace
And the world will go away.
Dream horses
Give me memories I can take
Into the dawn and cherish them
When I up and I am awake.
I will gather those memories
And I will play them again
As I wait for those nighttime
Hoofbeats and neighing to begin.
Dream horses
Come to me tonight.
Take me away from here
And show me sights.
Show me the cloud valleys
And canyons of thunder
While I pull up the covers
And hide deep under.
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 2:35 PM UTC
A dashing horse
is always one step
ahead
of the rolling dust
In the Year of the Horse
one ought to make
365
hoofbeats
Feb 20, 2018
Feb 20, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC
OrIginally published JANUARY 2017 -
The Leader
February 2020 - He Marches On.
Hoofbeats from a strange land,
As cascading Thunder roared,
upon the horse of prosperity,
he rode purposely,
Many embraced him as disciples,
Others laughed and jeered,
A fool has come today,
But his garments are fine,
Not a son of god nor prophet,
But rain in a drought,
For the thirsty,
Who had tasted sand,
A destroyer for others,
ancient dams would fall,
Thunder, blessings, cursing’s,
For The Leader had come,
A Time of fear for her,
A Time of hope for him,
They danced in bitterness,
Why this volatile disunion,
The Leader on his day,
Shouted visions for disciples,
unbelievers swam in confusion,
Many cried and screamed,
Alas,
James Kirk-Wiggins (c) 2017
Feb 16, 2020
Feb 16, 2020 at 4:11 PM UTC
we were still, quiet things,
twin drumbeats
among hoofbeats,
background noise against
a steady foreground.
we measured our brokenness
like flour in measuring cups
pure and white,
skimmed and leveled off at the top.
some things aren’t supposed to overflow;
blessings are, but we weren’t blessed,
not in the ways we thought we wanted.
so we found a new covenant in each other
in soft words and soft lips
and soft promises broken against skin made soft.
still. silent.
but the cacophony grew too loud,
discordant, dissonant,
our drumbeats discrepant.
distance. disaster.
we were still, quiet things,
two drumbeats among hoofbeats,
background noise against a sporadic foreground
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 11:49 PM UTC
I'm standing on the ledge,
somewhere between love and destitution.
You say you can handle being threatened,
But your eyes tell me something different.
I know what I'm up against,
I'm the jackal and she's the lion.
I carry you across the dry, barren landscape,
Feeding you bits of my heart
to sustain your essence.
My heart pounds like a thousand hoofbeats,
Echoing across the valley
of hatred and intolerance.
Like an old battle horse,
I move slowly and steadily,
Despite the wounds-- invisible to your eyes,
Causing fear throughout my body and soul:
Of losing you,
To a sea of vultures.
Sep 10, 2017
Sep 10, 2017 at 12:29 AM UTC