A dream of horses in rain
And a dead bookmaker’s tic-tac:
Sais a wang and Major Stevens;
Silks in vibrant shades,
Saddles weighted with seasons;
The going was good
And the odds were even.
Those thoroughbreds were long dead too,
Yet my mind unwoken is ransacked still;
Eight furlongs for a mare’s mile made,
My subliminal gizzard’s a hippophile;
Beaufort Scales in their withers
And flaring from their nostril frills
With muzzle of fire, and hooves of steel.