Hunting trails in Wiltshire

Laycock that’s near  Chippenham where  thatched cottages

tudor timbered

black and white

history revisited

At Avon vale’s delight

Boxing Day  it cometh

the centre,  becomes

a melee of huntsmen and horses

and hounds

of the day

red coats and jodhpurs

the hunts underway

the hunting sickness

regurgitated

the redundant empathy

rehashed and so dated

Real inequality

discordant and clashing

characterless featureless

rivalry bashing

Children on ponies

outside the box

hunting for trails

who saw a Fox

the great pantomime

mimicry, gestures

sent back in time

they are after vermin

the red brush,  the one

Wildness  personified

the day be done

out of his earth

chased for his life

For he  has so much worth

port pickled stomachs

inequality bound

lopsidedness it’s all around

The sweat of the mean

such generous girth

the poor horses suffering

Out on the earth

a family lies huddled

hearing the screams

the yelps

And the  hunters

having bad dreams

Avon vale hunt

Each  boxing day

All proud  as peacocks

quite the display

Decked out  in silks

johdpurs so tight

bright coloured stock

providing some fight

arrogant thoughts

a union of members

A disruption  of desire

distinguishable as countrymen

coherent and on fire

a kind of dissertation

tradition up ahead

riders hounds and vehemence

was it something that we said

saboteurs the audience the people

Acting out

another glimpse of history

unfolding

little doubt

these throwbacks from another time

ritualistically

chasing  down the wilder ones

and assemblage by degree

prosecuting murder

The trail the scent the  pain

Laycock feels the evil

It’s all  come back again

the great deviation

the ugly unorthodoxy

A spectre thats bizarre

grotesque to see in this day and age

really just how far

Tradition seems to want to go

Almost off the page

torture frighten tear apart

wildness  fraught of rage.