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Kasha, DJ, Amber,
Jayson, Gus, Tulip,
even a Rex,
I've known quite a few
but I'm not an owner.
A friend said, I see you
walking a large pure bred,
something elegant, regal
like a Borzoi.
Clearly he doesn't know me,
my impoverished
great-grandparents
who barely escaped Russian pogroms
with their life
over a century ago.
As far as dogs go
I don't care for the trained
obedience,
the slobbering lick-my-hand
deference,
they don't love,
that's a fiction,
they're loyal
inasmuch as pack animals
can be,
they respect only
the pecking order,
get shelter
and an easy meal
a lazy life of leisure
and in exchange
we project onto them
our deepest
psychological needs.
I prefer
other people's dogs,
cause
they're not mine,
they're not
me.
Perhaps your feelings about dogs reveal your feelings about people? "So ... now vee may perhaps to begin, yes?"**
ReplyDeleteI think that there are a lot of poems embedded within this one. As I wrote in my previous post on the first dog poem, I think that you may have a book here!
** I was going to cite where this line comes from, but I would bet even money that you already know.
My feelings about everything reveal only one thing. My feelings about myself.
ReplyDeleteThat line sounds so familiar. A psychiatrist... is it from a Woody Allen film? Wait, something more ominous... Marathon Man, just before he says "Is it safe?"
Yes. Someone mentioned to me once that Van Gogh's paintings of sunflowers are actually self-portraits.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the quote ... Woody Allen was a good guess. It's the final line from Philip Roth's "Portnoys Complaint". Heh, heh.