Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2025
Somewhere, poem by John W. Sexton.
Somewhere
for many players
The game of Somewhere requires a horse.
There is no horse provided for the game.
Two players approach another
and ask to be taken somewhere.
Yes, I will take you somewhere on my horse.
This person does not have a horse.
But first you must help me find it.
What does your horse look like?
It looks different every day.
We will only know it for certain
when it lets us onto its back.
The three players meet a person rolling a hoop of iron.
Two of them say,
Excuse us; we think this may be our horse.
No, says the person.
This is the moon.
It fell asleep against my grandfather’s barn.
I’m taking it back to the sky.
The three players meet a second person, also rolling a hoop of iron.
Two of them say,
Excuse us; we think this may be our horse.
No, says the second person.
This is yesterday’s sun.
It sputtered out before the nightfall just gone.
I’m rolling it over stones,
to try and spark it alight again.
Then the three players meet two people astride a large barrel.
Two of them say,
Excuse us, we think this may be our horse.
No, say the couple astride the barrel.
This is the bellow of a bull.
We found it
spinning on its echo in the meadow.
We’re taking it to the Town Cryer.
He has a private collection of cries
and will pay us a florin for it.
The three players then come across a boy on tall stilts.
They look up at him, towering over them.
Two of them shout up,
Excuse us, we think this may be our horse.
Hello down there, booms the boy.
No, this is not a horse.
I am riding a stork.
This is the easiest way there is
to travel the sky without wings.
The three players then come across
a blindfolded boy with a long stick.
Two of them say,
Excuse us, but have you seen our horse?
No, says the blindfolded boy.
I am not looking for a horse
and hope never to see one.
I hope never to see anything.
I am stumbling around in plain sight,
in the hope of knowing without seeing.
If I see your horse,
or if I see anything of anything,
then I will have failed.
Finally, the three players come across
a low wooden fence styled like a bannister rail.
The fence wends around an inn and a barn.
The first player hops upon it.
The second player follows,
sitting astride behind his fellow.
The third brightens with recognition,
At last!
This is my horse.
Let us ride it as hard as we can
to somewhere.
The game ends when they get there.
© John W Sexton
John W Sexton lives on Carn Mór, a mountain on the Kerry side of the Beara peninsula in the Republic of Ireland. He identifies with the Aisling poetic tradition and his work spans vision poetry, contemporary fabulism and tangential surrealism. His poetry is widely published and he has been a regular contributor to Live Encounters. He is the author of eight poetry collections, the most recent being Futures Pass (Salmon Poetry 2018), Visions at Templeglantine (Revival Press 2020) and The Nothingness Kit (Beir Bua 2022). In 2007 he was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.