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Unbroken Horses

Member since 2002 · Posted 15 Sep 2005 · Edited 19 Dec 2005 · 11 comments

My Grandfather spat tobacco bridling his limbs to stand. He mixed cortisone and bourbon raising a beaker to spoilt loaves saying 'God rest her soul'. I hid his shotguns that day as he looked for bullets, his quarry, my unbroken horse. That day I discovered jackals barked from his bitter tongue "Your're just like your Mother you Fatherless bastard" truth matures from sour mash. I hid in the stable with 'Donkey' but I called him 'Beauty' Grandfather never broke him just Grandma, when she died face down on fresh linen. I freed 'Beauty' and wept. Watched him buck and run, thought of Mums death and my murderous birth born again each October fifteenth by grandfathers matches and grandma's icing. He locked the stable door loaded his gun yelling 'Donkey' as I watched through the wood lattice. 'Beauty' was shot in the hind leg tried to stand three times but fell. by the time I escaped the stable he stood shaking in canter clouds and walked with me till he died. Grandfather called me a cissy only to die on St Patricks day face down in vomit on his knees alone by his broken horse.

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11 comments

[6] tianyi 16-Sep-05/9:57 AM Reply

I liked

when she died face down
on fresh linen.

'Beauty' was shot in the hind leg
tried to stand three times but fell.

But all in all not enough insight or images that will stick in my mind. It reads like hopelessly melancholic list of how crap things are. "Grandma's dead, I'm a bastard, Grandpa shot my horse, Grandpa's dead"

Perhaps just focus on one of these.

[n/a] Quarton › tianyi 17-Sep-05/7:55 PM Reply

Not a pretty picture but life can be a bitch sometimes. Some
very good lines and I like the narrative form you chose.

[9] Dovina 19-Dec-05/3:35 PM Reply

Very sad, forcefuly told.

[10] ALChemy 19-Dec-05/4:05 PM Reply

There was a time when men were hard living, gritty, stubborn SOB's and women were everyday saints. It was a different time that called for a different kind of people. Do not judge or praise them by today's standards. They did what they felt they had to do.

[9] Dovina › ALChemy 19-Dec-05/4:15 PM Reply

Yes, but this guy was an sob by any standard.

[10] ALChemy › Dovina 20-Dec-05/7:19 AM Reply

Not by the Grandmother's.

[9] Dovina › ALChemy 20-Dec-05/11:21 AM Reply

Then you have my sympathy. Still I think the grandfather in this poem is an SOB by any commonly accepted standard in any culture, except maybe the Vikings or the Mongols.

[10] ALChemy › Dovina 20-Dec-05/5:43 PM Reply

Why, because he shot a donkey while drunk and in intense grief over the loss of the only woman he'd ever love?

[9] Dovina › ALChemy 20-Dec-05/6:12 PM Reply

Looking at it that way allows some sympathy for the grandfather. I saw him as just a drunk, not particularly distressed over her death. In either case he should have considered the boy's feelings. It's kind of like trying to justify the actions of a drunk driver because he had a good reason to get drunk.

[10] ALChemy › Dovina 21-Dec-05/5:06 AM Reply

I'm not justifying him. I'm just saying most people don't have one dimensional personalities. There's been many a drunk driver who was considered a decent upstanding citizen. My grandfather was in many ways like this guy but there was also things about him you could love.

[9] crazyknight 21-Dec-05/7:11 AM Reply

never forget the salt in life for its what gives the taste to the adventure.