Wild Fridays #33: The Living Dead

 

My Dog

You foolish creature charging in

To flop in my chair with your lop-sided grin,
You chew my shoes and eat my socks:

I’m sure your head is made of rocks.

I plant, you dig my flowers and lawn,

You bark when the roosters crow at dawn.

You chase the baker, you bit the rector,

But you seem to adore the bill-collector.

Chaos comes with you through the door–

You are a clown and not much more.

But when I sit by the fire at night

And the world is mostly sleeping,

My thoughts caught up in fancied flight,

Then gently you come creeping.

You sit and stare at me above you,

Your tongue tip soft as a feather,

And I stretch my hand to prove I love you–

A man and his dog together.

– Jack Davis (1917-2000)

from The First-born and Other Poems. 

(Melbourne, J. M. Dent Pty. Limited, 1983.)

Some light relief after all the serious stuff I've been dishing up lately. Yes it has been pointed out that not everyone wants light relief and some welcome the more nitty-gritty offerings  – still, I think most of us respond to animal poems in any circumstances.

As many of you know, I'm a cat person really, but that doesn't mean I don't like dogs too. It's just that I like really big dogs, and it wouldn't be practical for me to have one of them now, though I have in the past. (Not enough funds or space any more.)

But if I can't have a dog, I can enjoy reading about other people's. And middle-sized dogs are nice too. I picture the one in Davis's poem as being middle-sized – maybe a Blue Heeler or a Labrador ... but most probably a bitzer. Heelers and Labs aren't quite as silly as this endearingly troublesome fellow.

I love the deceptive simplicity of Davis's poetry and his mastery of rhyme and rhythm. In this poem I like the way he changes both the rhythm and the rhyme scheme in the middle, reflecting the change in both mood and substance from the rollicking first verse to something more relaxed and thoughtful. 

He was an Aboriginal Australian who lived in Perth (Western Australia) and was even better known as  a playwright. You can read the details of his life and career at the Wikipedia link on his name (above). Or read the concise version here on the back cover of this book.

I bought my copy of The First-born when it was first published, and still enjoy re-reading it. The book includes many fine poems of mourning and protest about the post-colonial fate of black Australians, but I'll leave them for another day. (Sadly, decades after these writings, the issue doesn't look like being solved awhile yet.) 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Change

"All is flux, nothing stays still." 

–Plato

Sanaa, who has graced us for a year and more with her thoughtful and inspiring prompts, tells us she needs to bow out from the team for personal reasons. She's got a lot going on at present and feels she can no longer be as useful to the group as she'd like. I'm sure we'll still see her and her poetry around the traps. Meanwhile we thank her for her contributions to us all and to our writing, and we wish her very well.

"Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed."

― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright).