![\"\"](\"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/horse2.jpg\" "\\"horse\\"")
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Travellers<\/strong><\/p>\n for Martin<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n They were always there at the edge We knew from him we couldn’t trust Alongside a ditch lined by trees, Out late one night in our teens, Panicked, we stood directionless <\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Cooke<\/strong> won a Gregory Award in 1977 and published \u00a0Brueghel\u2019s Dancers<\/em> in 1984, but then stopped writing for \u00a0twenty years. His retrospective collection, In the Distance<\/em>, was published in 2011 by Night Publishing. \u00a0A new collection, Work Horses<\/em><\/a><\/span> , from which this poem was taken will be forthcoming this month from Ward Wood Publishing.\u00a0 <\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Travellers for Martin \u00a0 They were always there at the edge of the town, an unhoused presence we drove past on shopping-days and Sundays in the beat-up Morris Minor our grandfather steered, erratically, down the empty roads across the terrain of our fosterage. We knew from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions\/2501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nof the town, an unhoused presence
\nwe drove past on shopping-days
\nand Sundays in the beat-up Morris Minor
\nour grandfather steered,
\nerratically, down the empty roads
\nacross the terrain of our fosterage.<\/p>\n
\na tinker, who would steal both eyes
\nfrom out of your head, and feared
\nthe coarse importunate features
\nof the women scrounging in the street,
\nimagining curses they’d utter
\nas soon as our backs were turned.<\/p>\n
\ntheir camp was a smoky shambles
\nof wagons, pots, and drab tarpaulins
\nstretched into makeshift tents,
\ntheir stringy dogs and muddy-hued
\nsmall children roaming at will all day,
\nwhile the horses stood at ease.<\/p>\n
\nwith no lift home, my brother and I
\nwalked past them, making our way
\nalong an unlit road. The night
\ncountry-dark, a black sky welded
\nto earth, our ears were suddenly filled
\nwith the yelps of their dogs, untethered.<\/p>\n
\ntill one of the men came over
\nto leash them, his coaxing voice
\nlike a neighbour’s as he asked
\nwhich part we were from, our visiting
\naccent sounding alien to us
\nin the shock of re-established quiet.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n