Dead Horse Corner Poem by Patrick Dennis

Great grooves round your stiff hide
and clanks of bone mark your last struggle - -
there were many times all you needed extra
was a foal's strength to heave up your great body
only to tumble and begin again
the futile thrash. All this the gashed earth shows.

Your wild hooves arced the place
for the crows to aim out your eyes
and rip around your temples and your soft underbelly.
Darkly you dug through the days and nights of the half moon
till at last desiccated flesh seized on bone.

Poor faithful horse, for twelve years the backbone of my work
as you hurtled me through scrub after stray beef:
to end your soft retirement days thus!
And to think I failed you at last
for the want of being there and a palliative bullet!

Here in this remote scrub infested corner of my vast arid land
my progeny shall remember you.
Your bones - those the dingoes shall leave -
shall be the monument to nature and your life.
After you, Old Soldier, I name this place
Dead Horse Corner.