Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FIRST READER by GEORGE ADDISON SCARBROUGH

First Line: SORREL-BACKED / WITH INKY LETTERS / BENT HALFWAY ROUND / THE GALLOPING PONY
Sorrel-backed
With inky letters
Bent halfway round
The galloping pony:

Black on the moon:

Bright tin bucket
With star-dressed holes
Elaborately empierced
To temper a scholar's
Sweating meal:

At dead center
Of the wood to school
An angry creek
Butted stepstones:

My brother's hand
Accepting mine
Steering me over:

In my pocket cajoling
Plumgranny distilling
Seiged perfume:

Then the long room
And chanting voices
Word and willow stick:

Lout's leer,
Master's ease:

The levied melon
Promptly rescinded
To Master's keep:

Usurper swinged:
O the flaring,
Glaring, daring:

Seemly the stripes
Reaver wearing
After the switching:

Hands twitching:

The class rose
And chanted once more:

Our devoirs done
The creek's rote
Let us home:

My book, filched,
Sailed on the water:
One love apple

Was not enough:
The ante had been upped.
At cockshut time,

Between and between,
Dark Pony came galloping:
At the far edge

Of star-filled night
Shone the towers
Of Sleepytown:

Lamps winking:
Barely reached before
The advent of terror.


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