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The Horse Moon


Not everybody enjoys poetry.  Some prefer to write their own, others read it.  For me, it's always just been about catharsis.  Below is one of mine.  It's not new, but was written at a time when I was remolding my life.  Nothing was not in flux.  I was "playing the field," mainly because I was surrounded by many people a lot younger than me, and not in a serious-relationship frame of mind.


The Horse Moon
  © Nikki (Nicola) Holmes, 1994, 2018
(originally penned October 1994)


Breath burning nose, knee howling,
'The rain has stopped! The rain has stopped!'

Soft click of bicycle in a coast
whisks ride by. Snapshots
  of you in the light of a quarter moon
strobe through my brain;
  pan across my eyes.

Bridle slung over arm,
  riding boots in toe clips;
you--blue-edged silhouette
  moon over your shoulder.

Sting of salt,
 sweat in barb-wire scratches,
  little grains of troublesome words.

Gentle rocking of walk, staccato trot,
  well-paced, firm-handed canter.

Life time of training for last
 evening's performance now
 replayed with joy that was
 wont yet absent        under last night's moon.

Crop not spared, pace accelerated,
 soon night and morning smear
 together; steed and I race to,
 reach, that equine asymptote.



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