It's Still Life

That Speckled Grey 

There was a man. 

And there was a horse that 
was the colour of pebbles, 

assuming that pebbles are speckled grey, 
and this man had a horse, 

or at least that’s what he thought, 
but facts, being facts, always aren’t 

because this horse had a man 
and this horse juggled its man 

upside down, sideways, and in the air.

The man took every precaution, 
wore a tin hat on his head, tight  

blue breeches, knee-hi boots with 
giddy-up pokums on them, and 

a leather saddle strapped on his thighs. 

The horse wore nothing at all, 
except for that man of his, and 

at every opportunity that horse 
threw his man like a tossed coin. 

And everyone said that man
was just horsing around, but 

that horse had a thing or two to say about that .