The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a sonnet.  One of the world’s most famous sonnet forms was the Shakespearean sonnet, the form I use below. William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616–exactly four hundred years ago today. He is still the best known playwright and among the best loved poets in history. I apologize to him for these sonnets, with which he would most certainly be disappointed; but luckily, “Disappointment” is exactly the prompt for WordPress this day, and so I thereby kill two prompts with one poem!!

Three Wan Dogs before Their Feeding

Our mistress lies upon her bed too long,
her favorite silver thing upon her lap.
That she should put our feeding off is wrong.
We sit and stare at her through her door’s gap.

She taps upon her thing and taps and taps.
Sometimes she chortles, but we don’t know why.
Where formerly her bed was used for naps,
a favorite dog cuddled against her thigh,

she now spends all  her time there with that thing
as we sit hungry, waiting to be fed.
She seeks the nourishment that words can bring,
for she is sure that if she leaves her bed

before she finishes her sonnet, then
her muse will not agree to come again.

Three  Hungry Dogs Intent Upon Their Feeding

At last at last she opens up her door
and feeds our sister first, lest we devour
her food ourselves and then not leave the poor
dear girl with any sustenance to power

her barking at the other dogs who pass.
But now our mother fills our bowls as well––
each portion measured by a measuring glass.
Each second  we must wait becomes a Hell.

She scoops out first the dry and then the wet––
more for the big dog and less for the small.
We worry over how much food we’ll get,
remembering times when we had none at all.

But finally, our portions, too, are dished
(although not quite so full as we’d have wished.)

Three Patient Dogs after Their Feeding

Now see our dishes cleaned and neatly stacked?
Our human lolls once more upon her bed.
to write more stanzas that she formerly lacked
and free herself of rhymes that fill her head.

The small dog leaps upon her bed to lie
and garner a small scratching now and then.
We larger dogs lie watching from close by,
kept from our human in her iron pen.

See her now, look quizzical and rapt?
We know not what she thinks there on her back.
Where formerly she read or watched or napped,
she stews about just what her poems might lack.

For Shakespeare she is not, the silly goose.
Her talents? More in line with Dr. Seuss!!!

(Click on the first photo below to enlarge photos and read captions–also written in couplet form.)  Good grief. It’s my muse’s fault. The girl can’t help it!!)

We also hunger who only stand and wait

But soon our lady rises to the bait

“She” portions out our food with motherly care.

Diego’s next to feed, determined by age.

and Morrie quickly wound up in the brig. Why?

Though Morrie is always the last to feed, He makes up for it with ungodly speed.

And then, lest Frida leave a scrap of kibble, he licks her bowl free of each lasting dribble.

By then, our mom has gone back to her writing, before we’ve even finished with our biting.

Although he comes in last when being fed, at least he fits into our lady’s bed.

Perhaps when this infernal poem is through, we’ll win our lady’s company anew.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/disappointment/

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-three-2/