Dee Dickens’ poem was shortlisted in the Best Single Poem category for the Disabled Poets Prize 2024.
The winners were announced on 16 March 2024, during Deptford Literature Festival, in an online event.
A Horse Walks Into a Bar – After Tyrone Lewis
©Dee Dickens 2024
A horse walks into a bar, and the barman says,
Why the long face?
PTSD says the horse.
Horse walks into a bar, barman says “Hey”
horse says “Yes please”
Horse walks into a bar.
Fucks the first stranger who buys it a drink.
A horse walks into a bar, the barman offers a glass of water,
Horse says, I’m not drinking that, this is not an idiom, it’s a joke.
A horse walks out of a bar; catches sight of itself in a shop window.
Doesn’t eat for three days.
A horse falls in love with the first horse to show it some attention,
because of course it does.
Why wouldn’t it?
A horse gets changed mid-stream, is sure that it must have been something it did.
Shaves its mane off.
Horse goes into therapy.
Spends the first session comforting the therapist
A horse bolts.
Stable door gets closed.
Horse is relieved it can’t return to a burning barn.
A horse runs down a beach feeling the wind in its face.
Horse has dyspraxia, trips over.
Horse breaks its leg, gets shot.
A horse dies.
Still gets flogged.
Horse goes home for Christmas and is warned not to be controversial.
Spends the whole time throwing up everything it eats.
Grandad turns up to Christmas dinner,
horse kicks out stable door, whinnying.
Horse’s family stages intervention.
He’s from a different time, he’s harmless really.
Horse stops eating.
Horse lies on a bed of hay fantasising about how flammable it is.