![\"icehorses-small.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/icehorses-small.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\")
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THE ICE HORSES <\/strong><\/p>\n The Second Shore Poets Anthology Scottish Cultural Press, Edinburgh 1996<\/p>\n contained these three poems<\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE ICE HORSES<\/strong> Later, as a storm battered<\/p>\n the tin roof of our garage One winter the Thames here froze over This flashes through my mind as I cross We hear heavy horses above, wandering.<\/p>\n Later still I discover that my maternal grandfather <\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE SEVERED TONGUE<\/strong> Fondling the tin marker in the calf’s ear Twenty years later My accent was drained out of me. Those words that dripped off his tongue. Now I stand at a window <\/p>\n <\/p>\n THE HARE-LIP<\/strong><\/p>\n The hare-lip of my step-grandfather To this day I’m not sure how it’s spelt whilst i’d sit in his front room Now I get confused Those days i was closer Like a spitfire over the channel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE ICE HORSES The Second Shore Poets Anthology edited by Stewart Conn & Ian McDonough Scottish Cultural Press, Edinburgh 1996 contained these three poems THE ICE HORSES I lean over and point my father’s gaze at the photo of Bud Finch at the wheel of his ‘Minneapolis Moline’ tractor which, though sunk during the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":141,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-166","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P6nhh-2G","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/166\/revisions\/1487"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>edited by Stewart Conn & Ian McDonough<\/p>\n
\nI lean over and point my father’s gaze
\nat the photo of Bud Finch
\nat the wheel of his ‘Minneapolis Moline’ tractor
\nwhich, though sunk during the war,
\nhad been salvaged.<\/p>\n
\nand flakes of broken fence spread across our lawn,
\nI returned to Bud’s memoirs.<\/p>\n
\nand horses walked out across the river
\nto graze upon the reeds.
\nOne fell through
\nand men from Bud’s village pulled it out,
\nlaid it on a gate, carried it back to the village.<\/p>\n
\nthe same water in the passenger seat of my dad’s truck.
\nWe are working at a mental institution,
\n(once a military hospital)
\nslipping under the wooden floorboards of wards
\nto fireproof heating ducts with glass fibre.<\/p>\n
\nlay in that hospital as I was born in the winter of ’59.
\nMy mother tells me I was taken in and shown to him
\nlike a new tractor brought onto his farm.
\nDid his eyes see swaddling bands, metal bed, window bars
\nand bare floorboards glazed with water
\nor did they see barn, field, horses,
\nfolding under snow,
\nships sinking in a blizzard.<\/p>\n
\nWhere’s they going grampy?<\/p>\n
\nI felt its coat of dried mud shudder
\nas his hand came down once more.
\nThe thwack sent it skidding up the planks
\nlike a potted billiard ball.<\/p>\n
\nI can’t grasp that tongue.
\nCan’t get a hold of the skull
\nbetween two firm hands and prise it open.<\/p>\n
\nA slit bullock over a drain
\ntaught to sound better
\nmy nose forced down in a trough of grammar.<\/p>\n
\nThe lolling, spittly threads
\nof long Berkshire a’s and r’s
\nwere sluiced clean away.<\/p>\n
\nin Oxford’s covered market
\nlooking down through my reflection
\nat a tray of severed tongues.
\nTrying to find a bucket for his vowels.<\/p>\n
\ncut like a chalk-stream down his face
\ntwisting the upper lip into a V
\nand pulling the sides of his mouth
\ncloser together<\/p>\n
\nh.a.r.e. or h.a.i.r.
\nbut I do remember his dog
\nbolting a hare across the stubble fields
\nand his worn pipe trembling in that V
\nas he struck another match<\/p>\n
\npicking at lamb-roll scholl lunchtimes
\nlistening to country voices rattling from a radio
\nas big as the T.V. we’d rented since 1966.<\/p>\n
\nAll I hear is the swish and crackle of lit straw
\nas I spin the dial and press my ear to the speaker.<\/p>\n
\nas I peered into the warm dust
\nat the tiny red lights that flickered.
\nCould tell a false accent from a real one.
\nNow it’s all scrambled.
\nLost on the air somewhere
\nfrom those smoky valves.<\/p>\n