Tag Archives: poems about dogs

Coco’s Tale

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Coco’s Tale

This frisky little mongrel, rescued off the street,
jumped up at once to greet me and wove around my feet.
We were meant to be together, I thought. What better proof
than her goofy antics—her lick and growl and woof?

I didn’t need another dog. My friends would all concur.
In my home there was no lack of yowl and bark and purr.
Would a new arrival agree with dog and cat?
Would my spectacular surprise fizzle and fall flat?

Would Morrie accept her? Would Zoe object?
Would the cats say “That’s enough!” and finally defect?
I had no proof that she’d fit in, and yet part of the weaving
together of a family is in the believing.

That potent pull of heartstrings exchanged at the first glance
somehow won over reason, so I thought I’d take the chance.
When we got into the car, she jumped up on my lap,
curled herself into a ball and took a little nap.

Cats hissed at her arrival and approached her fully armed,
so her feline siblings clearly were not charmed!
But to Zoe and to Morrie, she is a long-lost friend,
and though our story is not over, for now this is “The End!”

 

I’ve had a terrible bronchial infection for the past two weeks and indications are that I’m allergic to Coco. I tried making Zoe and Coco sleep out in the doggie domain with Morrie, but they cried for two hours, so they are back inside but somehow, Coco seems to realize my problem and she has shifted from sleeping right beside my neck to getting as far away from my face as possible while still touching me, so she sleeps pressed up against my leg, knee to ankle, or with her chin over my foot.  Zoe has switched down to sleep in her own little bed right next to the bed. Fingers crossed that this will work. They are so dear. Zoe and Coco are constant companions and Morrie sometimes joins in the chase. I feel bad, knowing he is missing Diego, so I’ve been putting the girls out all day to keep him company and sometimes he sleeps on a comfy lawn chair right outside my bedroom door that I leave cracked a bit so the dogs can get out if they need to.  Peaceable kingdom. The cats still don’t like the new intruder, but they have their own safe area out in front that is not accessible to the dogs.

Prompt words today are spectacular, concur, believing, potent, proof and exchange.

Ode to Morrie

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Ode to Morrie

Oh you ball of energy, you little ball of fluff.
When it comes to hugging you, I cannot get enough.
Your hair so black and curly, your teeth so sharp and white
that it is an honor when you choose to bite.

Your flair at ball retrieval truly has no equal.
However many thrown for you, you always seek a sequel.
Your eyes luminous marbles, your nails a lovely shape
from running over terraces to stem a squirrel’s escape.

Your hairy little jowls would put Borgnine’s to shame.
So many little mysteries for which you aren’t to blame.
What creature eats the birdseed spread out on the wall?
What other creature has your leap? What other dog the gall?

You give the cats their exercise and what possum would dare
to stray into a garden given to your care?
Oh brave little caroler when interloper passes,
Your mighty barks belie your size. No burglar tests your sasses.

At night you serenade me with your howling croon
accompaniment to ambulances or the rising moon.
My revered alarm clock, my companion after dark,
as now and then throughout the night I celebrate your bark.

Each day I laud thy energy, thy beauty and thy voice.
When I contemplate your dogginess, I cannot but rejoice!
This ode of praise I write for thee, I cannot help but pen it.
If there had been a dog messiah, my dear, you would have been it!


(Click on photos below to enlarge and read captions.)

 

That’s bird seed for the birds, Morrie. Since you knocked their bird feeder down and broke it, it’s the best place for me to see them feeding.
Yeah. Good boy, Morrie. Thanks for cleaning up the birdseed I spilled!!!

For day 16 of NaPoWriMo we are to write an “Over the Top” poem of excessive praise for something.

Also for: dVerse Poets.

Bend and Stretch

10 Replies

He is so tiny, rolled in a ball
that you can barely see him at all,
but when his favorite people happen to call,
then he stretches out and tries to be tall!

 

In and Out

6 Replies

In and Out

 

The Lapdog

Dogs that stand outside and seek admittance to within
overlook the worth of what they’ve seen and where they’ve been.
Those of us sealed fast inside yearn to see the world
that we have been deprived of as we lie securely curled
in the safety of our houses, away from chasing cars
and other fun activities kept from us by bars.
We would feel such ecstasy racing after squirrels,
other dogs and cats and lizards, skunks and boys and girls.
We seek to flee the rules that those street dogs seem to flout.
We would have such wild adventures if we only could get out!!

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The Street Dog

Lucky little dogs with collars sit there looking out
as though they do not know what life for street curs is about.
We’d love to have their pampering and their daily feeding.
What they seek escape from is exactly what we’re needing!

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Play Break

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Play Break

See how the young dog darts and nips
at the old dog’s neck and hips?
Anxious on this glorious day
to jump and scamper, tease and play.

With one year only to his name,
his entire life’s a game.
The older dog, his conquests made,
calmly commandeers the shade.

Winded, panting, tired, sore,
he lies there for five minutes more,
then springs to life, ready again
to be the dog he was back when.

 

Murder at Midnight

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This was originally just written as a fast silly poem to forgottenman to explain why I hadn’t yet gone in swimming. He insisted I blog it which meant taking photos, but alas, no camera was to be found. Phone not charged. So, I used my Kindle, but couldn’t get photos mailed to myself so I emailed the pretty bad photos to him..but couldn’t reduce them enough to get them back by email. A good 45 frustrating minutes later, I went down to the studio, thinking I’d left my camera there, but alas, no camera. I did, however find my other computer that needed to be up in my house to download some things he was sending me.  I also found and killed a scorpion in the hall on my way out of the house. Back to the house to look once more in every room for my camera. Emptied my purse. No camera. Decided to go out to the garage to look in the car, I opened the front door and all 4 kittens flooded into the house. I’d forgotten to shut the gate between the front garden and the kitten domain! They immediately spread to the four corners of the house after each first going immediately to inspect the dead scorpion, which I then quickly disposed of. Finally corralled three and confined them in their sleeping room, but Kukla wasn’t to be found. Went out to garage. No camera in the car. On a hunch, I opened the back door and there it was on the floor of the backseat. It must have fallen out of my purse. Came back in, checked kittens, went out to take more photos in the back yard–of the subject of this poem–came back and heard Kukla crying, sealed in my bedroom. Let her out, tried to put her in with her peers and she ran off. She’s now purring on my lap as I type this. Photos now in the blog. Tried to put this explanation at the end but WP won’t cooperate and let me put anything below the last photo, so here we are, giving this long boring explanation when what you really want to get to is the:

Murder at Midnight

Went out to dip my toe in water,
thinking that perhaps I oughter
swim if it was not too hot
or if I found that it was not
cool enough, I’d blog some more;
but just a few feet from my door,
I found two obstacles depressing,
both of them, it’s true, more pressing
than my pool aerobics were.
The first, a snag of chewed-up fur
that turned out to be a dead rat.
The second was leaf cutter ants––
determined in their chained advance.
Thousands of them in a line,
carrying leaves on which they’d dine
later in their snug abode
outside my walls, across the road.
Unless I made a quick advance,
my trees and flowers would have no chance.
“I must be strong, I can’t demur.
I must play the murderer,”
I thought as I sprinkled a line
of poison pellets on which they’d dine.
Thus did I join my canine friends
in bringing creatures to their ends.
Fate may forgive our murdering ways,
but it won’t end our murdering phase.

 

(Photos may be enlarged by clicking on first photo.)

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Judy's new haircut and thin lips

Offender #2 (and, ironically, as I type this, a hitchhiking leaf cutter ant just bit me on the neck!  Murder number three.  I hope.  I took a swat but can’t find him.  He may yet exact another revenge.

Dead Possum

15 Replies

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Dead Possum

A rude surprise,
it lay like breakfast rejected
on the patio outside the dogs’ sleeping room.

The dogs were restless this morning,
barking for their kibble,
unwilling to follow the rules
that decreed paws known all too well
as lethal weapons needed to be contained,
the dogs in their open cages before I’d venture out to feed.
But some wildness recently sated
drove them to assault the door
and refuse repeated demands to
go to their beds.
They staged their impatient war dance,
telling with growls and claws
the tale of the hunt—
That won battle.

I lock them in their cages
and, order restored, I dish their meals
and free them to their feed.
I walk behind them to secure the sliding glass door,
gather dust pan and broom, plastic pail.
Their quarry too large to fit, let alone be lofted
by a dust pan, I grasp the tail and lower the possum
like a colossal tea bag for a dipping,
into the wash bucket,
walk the long path down to the lower wall,
heft it over into deep underbrush
of the vacant lot next door.

I own that land.
It has been the burial place
of sixteen generations of those possums
too slow for escape,
with teeth and claws insufficient for defense––
every one a battle won
by the dogs
and each one equally mourned––
their wild ferocity not enough
to best even dogs seemingly grown docile
until these night battles
gone unnoticed in my dreams
are brought to view in light of day.

The possum’s fur wet and matted but only slightly torn,
every time I hopefully delude myself
that perhaps it’s playing witness to its name
and only playing possum.
Optimistically, I don heavy gloves and winter coat,
ready for the struggle as I try to save
what an adult part of me knows
no longer is in need of saving.

Each corpse ironically made heavier by loss of life,
that dead weight of it
is echoed in a central part of me
as I try to lift with reverence
this newest evidence
that most of life
and all of death
is out of our control.

Morrie at the Beach: Heaven Scent

19 Replies

Morrie at the Beach

Everywhere he wanders,
everywhere he goes
is a place to stick his
curious little nose.

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Birds are drifting over,
hundreds at a time;
yet his nose is stuck in
something more sublime.

Aromas are his poetry, 
scents to him are words.
He has no time for looking
at these air-bound birds.


Even when they’re floating
nearby on the sea,
He only has time lately
for odors and for me!

What to many is simply a bad odor can be fascinating to others. I am so curious about what Morrie can detect as he sniffs everything on the beach!!

Heaven Scent

9 Replies

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Heaven Scent

With no wall or door or fence,
the wilds a new experience,
when morning dawns, he’s off his chain
and free in nature once again.

From chair to chair and tent to tent,
He follows lovely trails of scent.
He’s on the trail of cat or rabbit—
hoping he might find and grab it.

Like movies scribed during the night,
they tell their tales of darkened flight.
He sees the various routes they chose
in pictures captured by his nose.

Humans cannot know or feel
the intricacies scents reveal.
He follows everywhere they went,
finding aromas heaven-sent.

 

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The prompt word today was “scent.”

 

midnight chocolate

8 Replies

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midnight chocolate

just one crumb
of temptation
left

lying on yesterday’s
pristine
white floor

proof of last night’s sin
today
lapped up happily

by the
smallest
black dog

 

 

Temptation was the prompt word today.