Found Poetry

[Hawkman]

To shoot a horse.-
Lift up forelock
and place it under brow band.
Place muzzle of revolver
almost touching
the skin
where the lowest hairs
of the forelock grow.

From: Field Service Pocket Book 1914 (Reprinted with amendments 1916) Chapter 7 para 33 page 209.

[Buh4Bee]

Hawk! You flew back in. Thanks for sharing a little piece of history!

[Hawkman]

Hi B4B. A flying visit indeed, just to drop of this morsel. Thanks for reading it.

Live and be well - H

[AuntShecky]

Just like love (so they say), poetry is where we find it.

A clever one, Hawk.


AuntShecky
"A louse in the locks of literature."

[Jerrybaldy]

Genius find and post. If posted when written (not that it could have been posted) you may have been instituitionalised, today as auntie says its where we find it and you found it here. If somebody ever defines poetry we are all screwed ;D

[qimissung]

:yikes: I don't think that's how Tippi Hedren did it in Marnie. Anyway, all I can think of when I read this is the horse's beautiful liquid eyes staring at me.
H-m-m-m, that might make a good second verse.

Thanks, Hawkman. *sarcasm*

Interesting find, however, historically speaking.

[Hawkman]

Auntie: Many thanks. You too, JB although I'm not sure that I would have been regarded as Doolally for finding poetry in these lines in 1916. I'm almost surprised that the war poets of WW1 didn't beat me to it. ;)

qim: It's a while since I've seen Marnie, and it's not my favourite Hitchcock film anyway, so I don't remember the scene to which you refer. Certainly, I'd have to agree that the lines are, perhaps, something of a historical oddity. After all, they were written as guidance for a military which was still wedded to dependence on horse power. But that's kind of the point. The men who went to war with horses had an intimate relationship with their animals. Consequently one asks, "Why would they want to shoot a horse anyway?" Well, unless they wanted to eat it, the reason would be to end it's suffering. I find a curious tension in the lines, between the abbreviated military speak, shorn of extraneous words, and the lyricism of that last sentence, which to me at least, is infused with wistful regret.

The tactile intimacy of brushing the hair back, the muzzle of the revolver, "not quite touching the skin," the focus on the place, "where the lowest hairs of the forelock grow," and the delicate restraint evinced by the refusal to commit to paper the final instruction, "pull trigger," could almost speak of a lover's farewell.

But then, maybe I'm just spending too much time at the racetrack...

Live and be well - H

[AuntShecky]

I don't remember the Hitchcock connection, but I do remember a 1970 film
(based on a novel) called "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" It was kind of a "downer" to use a term from the 60s and 70s. The Depression-era story was about desperate folks entering marathons to win the money they needed to survive; they danced to exhaustion, physically and mentally suffering so much that the horse question came to mind.

So you're absolutely right, Hawk, that "they shoot horses" to spare them further suffering, and then only as a last resort.

By the way, on most, if not all, stateside race tracks, the vets don't euthanize (and that's the appropriate word) the fatally injured horses by shooting them anymore. The more human method is lethal injection. On "Luck," a racing-theme miniseries currently running on Am. tv, a couple of episodes back featured an emotionally moving scene in which a vet did that very thing. Usually the officials "van" off the horse, but sometimes the sad event occurs not far from the track itself. In that case, some kind of screen or curtain is put up to shield the sad view from spectators.

[Jerrybaldy]

Off track a bit but coincidently I have a part finished poem of the last few days with the first line being they shoot horses dont they and also remember the film and the sadness of the title in the context of the film and even a song by that title by a band called racing cars (I think). I am beginning to think that 'they shoot horses dont they?' is up there with the greatest lines ever written.

[Haunted]

I thought the shooting refers to shooting a picture (with camera), that of a horse to be shot (with gun), until I read the comments. Tell me no animal was harmed in the writing of this Hawk!!

Everything is so personal and delicate here, lifting the forelock and *almost* touching the skin... and that makes the poem even more touching indeed.

[Hawkman]

Auntie: yup, it's the same here too, these days. Fortunately, the last time I saw the screens up the horse was just winded and eventually got back to its feet again. This is not always the case though, see my "Point to Point". I could make further reference to "They Shoot Horses, Don't they?" but not without posting a spoiler, so I won't :D

JB: Thanks for reading and I kind of agree about that line.

Haunted: I guess you missed the word "Revolver" then ;) I can assure you that no horse was hurt by me :D Glad you found the poetry in it.

Live and be well - H

[qimissung]

"Marnie" is one of my favorite movies, although that is beside the point. I'm a city person, but even I am aware that sometimes horses must be put down, and it was that scene I was referring too.

"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" is a beautiful line, Jerry, and the movie looks unflinchingly at human despair.

As it happens, you saw more in those lines than I did, Hawkman. They seemed kind of cold to me.

[Haunted]

I know it says "revolver", I just thought the first reference was a camera, and it's a camera shooting the shooting. Many times i get things wrong, and here i made the imagery out as more complicated in my mind than it really is. Don't mind me........!

[Hawkman]

qim: The response to an emotive scenario is always subjective, I guess.

Haunt: No worries :D

Live long and prosper - H