The Dogs Are Barking

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The dVerse Poets prompt requires that we write a quadrille–a poem of 44 words––making use of the word “steep.”  To do so, I rewrote an earlier poem so it became a 5 stanza poem, each stanza forming a quadrille. I wonder how many other poets share this experience as they are awakened from dreams by one means or another:

The Dogs Are Barking

They break the morning––a daily rite.
It’s just a warning. The dogs won’t bite.
Two strangers talk but pass unseen.
I doze, they walk, with a wall between.
I try to sink back into sleep,
once more to drink of waters deep,

trying to slip between the seams
of the surface of my dreams
but the dogs still bark. They leap and pace.
My dreams, not ready for this morning place,
lie dark and deep and intertwined,
wanting to creep back up my mind.

But its steep slope is much inclined
and provides small hope that I will find
once more that world well out of sight
where truth lies curled, still holding tight––
as an oyster cleaving, loath to unfurl
and reveal to light the priceless pearl

of that mind of dreams that slips the knife
beneath the rind of daily life.
Time is a brew of present, past
and future, too—all tenses cast
to bring to light those grains of sand
made pearls of wisdom by nature’s hand.

Dreams are stories we tell ourselves
and share, perhaps, on bookstore shelves.
Pinned to pages, they reach their height
and bring our sage self to the light.
But the dogs are barking. They’re hungry, cross.
When I rise feed them, the poem is lost

dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt is steep.

13 thoughts on “The Dogs Are Barking”

  2. Laura Newhampshire's avatarM. Oniker

    I honestly am amazed by your consistency in being prolific with your poetry, regardless of style. Rhyming poetry isn’t my favorite, but you do it so well! All the frikkin’ time. Like, every day! :::applauds:::

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Very honored by your comment. I really can write unrhymed poetry, but it is so much fun to rhyme that I keep falling back to it, like a bad/good? habit. I just like the challenge and the unexpected roads it takes one down. I always appreciate your comments.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      My dogs know the exact second I think of them. I can lie there for an hour, but the moment I think, I wonder when the dogs will ask to be fed, they immediately start barking. It’s uncanny.

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