Poem
Tracey Herd
SHEEP
SHEEP
SHEEP
God alone knows what’s stuck in their throatAlthough even He is looking elsewhere:
It’s as if one of their dishevelled number had swallowed
A car on its attendant gravel and coughed it back up
As the tyres slip and the ancient engine protests.
They nose aimlessly amongst the thin grass
And scatter of rocks on a hillside that ought to be
Too steep: somehow, they remain rooted there
Like elderly ladies, pleasantly befuddled.
From this distance they are misshapen dots
That float, detached, from the tired eye.
They look up at nothing and bend their heads
Back down against the driving rain.
© 2006, Tracey Herd
Tracey Herd
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1968)
Tracy Herd was born in 1968 in East Kilbride. She now lives in Dundee where she works as a bookseller. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1993, and was the recipient of two Scottish Arts Council Bursaries in 1995 and 2004. Her first collection, No Hiding Place, Bloodaxe 1996, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and her second collection, Dead Redhead (Bloodaxe 2001) w...
Poems
Poems of Tracey Herd
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SHEEP
God alone knows what’s stuck in their throatAlthough even He is looking elsewhere:
It’s as if one of their dishevelled number had swallowed
A car on its attendant gravel and coughed it back up
As the tyres slip and the ancient engine protests.
They nose aimlessly amongst the thin grass
And scatter of rocks on a hillside that ought to be
Too steep: somehow, they remain rooted there
Like elderly ladies, pleasantly befuddled.
From this distance they are misshapen dots
That float, detached, from the tired eye.
They look up at nothing and bend their heads
Back down against the driving rain.
SHEEP
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