Day 24 (2)

 Day 24

Attempt 2

Using, in the middle, a line from Louis MacNeice's London Rain, which I haven't read for years, but something about the mention of horses and London brought to mind a news story today about escaped cavalry horses.

And there are horses

ebony and white; their flanks

bright flagged with blood

or dark glistening with blood

from many collisions

There are cavalry horses 

in the good part of London

running like slipped time through the streets

running like escaped memory

not gentle but wild

how

the rain of London pimples

the ebony street with white

and

the news feed telling us

there are horses between the traffic,

horses in the fields of people 

running wild. There are horses

and glass, and tarmac 

Where is the cavalry 

in the riderless weather, in

the forest of the city?

Those they have thrown

stand stranded, and weep

like rain in peacetime war,

thundering weather of the horses,

the red of sainted roses