Cats, on the other hand…
Cats
1
Cats, on the other hand…
Category Archives: Poems
What dogs lack
What dogs lack is perspective.
There are no dog priests.
No dog poets barking rhythmically at the hollow moon.
No dog inspectors, no dog police.
A sniff is just a sniff, a scrap is just a meal.
They fill no days pondering the meaning
Of the star- rooted sky,
Or why a corpse will disappear
Slowly, like yesterday’s breakfast.
There is nothing sacred or profane,
Nothing indelible stamped on the
Hide-like souls of dogs.
They eat. They shit. They sleep.
They’re in heaven or hell, one the same as the other,
They see no difference between
A special day or no particular day.
You can’t sell a dog an insurance policy.
They like the warmth of a human body,
The sound of deep sleep,
The feel of an embrace across depthless
Eons, as distant as love, as close as touch.
If there’s food, they will eat all of it.
Dear Father
You came late to your children,
As if unaware, as if dumbfounded
By the light.
You, breathless, demanded,
And I, helpless, waited,
The way a dog will sit for scraps,
The way a new moon longs for the sun.
You never knew me;
That’s your business.
But lately I find myself
Looking at your portrait
Trying to find some weakness,
Some bit of doubt
Let slip in that long moment.
Instead I see
The mirror of your eyes,
Behind which looms
An inaccessible mystery.
To me, what’s holy
To me, what’s holy
Is that place in childhood
In the sweet scorching sunlight
Long before the winter set in,
The pure clean dust on boots and faces,
The roadside graced with Queen Anne’s Lace,
The jeweled glistening glass along the rainbow creek,
That ran a different color every day,
The utter boundlessness of tar-sinking footfalls
On the never finished streets, their safety lamps
Burning eternally like votive candles
Lit in memory of long abandoned labor.
Once I found a ring bristling with keys
Their secret locks forgotten.
In the utter stillness of mid day summer,
I sat looking at them for hours.
Tanka
Tanka is a Japanese poetry style similar to haiku, but a bit longer. Its syllabic formula is 5-7-5-7-7, and like haiku, tends toward themes of nature and the seasons. I find it to be exactly the wrong length, and therefore irresistible. Here’s one.
I dream of islands
Tomb-spattered and draped with vines
Overpowering
The sweltering summer stench
Along paths of memory
exiles child 