Houdini

Houdini
 
She’s the Houdini of hounds

getting in and out of tight spaces .

Her piece de resistance ?
The burying-in-the-blanket trick .

Performed while we’re asleep .

The props ?

A wicker basket with ground sheet
and blanket .

The technique ?

A mystery BUT
she wraps herself inside that blanket —
a hot dog —
against the cold .

In the morning we go out eyes
wide with amazement .

At the sound of biscuits sprinkled
in the bowl
she extricates herself
 
from her woolen prison
faster than Houdini
from his padlock and chains .
 
 

Sultanas

You are the gin

in gin ‘n’ tonic,

the rum

in

bundy and coke;

the abracadabra that transforms,

the fruity little pellets

that add

zest and zing

to oats

that put the sing

in snap, crackle, ‘n’ pop,

feisty little metaphors

for writing

that needs to lift its lid

let out its Id

roll like a dog

in

the muck and merriment

of language.

Hosannas to sultanas.

*pic courtesy of pinterest

The Sitting Duck

Every time I sit out the back on my three chairs a bloody poem

comes into my head. The Muse is not silly. She sees me sitting there, happily

drifting off like a Labrador in the winter sun

and says, ‘Aha: there’s a sitting duck’. I don’t know if sitting on fewer

chairs or more would make a difference. I suppose I could experiment.

I could bluff my way into intensity by having a book of heft

say ‘Sabbath’s Theatre’ open in front of me and my glasses resting

professorially on the bridge of my nose, my chin resting on my hand

in faux concentration. Maybe that would work

but She’s not buying it; She nudges up to me, the swish of Her gown

over the carpet of bluebells, the murmur of bees, Gus, the Jack Russel

yelping at ghosts next door, and says, I’ve got one for you

and She whispers a line in my ear, and she sure has, and I leap out

of my three chairs and dash into my study, onto my laptop where I’m

pounding down this poem, the one you’re reading,  right now

In Which the Dog Loses His Cool

I’ve got a bone to pick

with you,

says the dog to Mrs. Hubbard.

How come when I go

to look

there’s no food in the cupboard?

No meat, no cans, no biscuits.

Why there’s not

even a single bone.

And you have the cheek,

the temerity

to call this place a home!

It’s not as though you’re

the old woman

who lives downstreet in the shoe.

Look around. You haven’t

any kids to feed.

There’s just me and you!

Whatever can be the cause

of this

outlandish state of affairs?

Why if I was goosey goosey gander

I’d kick you

right down these stairs!

More Lamb than Hedgehog

My mentor told me how to write a poem about slippers. Make it easy, he said. comfortable and cozy, warm, no prickly bits. More lamb than hedgehog.

I had a girlfriend once who forbade me to wear slippers: ‘Next thing  I know”, she said, ‘You’ll be wearing a dressing gown, reading cozy murder mysteries and shuffling around the house like an old man.”

My dogs when they were puppies took a violent dislike to slippers, tearing them apart with a vitriolic zeal of which my girlfriend would have approved. For years I walked around the house in loafers until the puppies grew up and out of their habit.

Whenever I hear Bing Crosby sing White Christmas over the PA system in his hush puppy voice I think of slippers. Slippers are like bean bags for the feet.When you slump into them they have the feel of home.

Standoffish

Your poems are standoffish, he says.

You put fences around them to keep

People out,

‘Trespassers Prosecuted’ signs to keep

Your poems secure,

Guard dogs patrolling the perimeter

Snarly with menace.

Call off the dogs, he says

Open up your poems.

What are you afraid of?

People got to walk around.

Let the sunshine in.

You’re supposed to listen to your writing coach, right?

Okay, okay, I say

As I take down the tall palings

One by one.

Put up a Welcome sign.

It’s a little scary for me too.

 

Who’s in Charge Here, Anyway?

 

My body alarms me.

It rings two or three times a night.

Who’s in charge here anyway?

Poetry flowed from me

Like water from a garden hose.

Days were diamonds.

My feet horses’ hooves.

Nothing defeated me.

I was sharp as Sherlock.

Prolific as Zola.

I had two hounds.

The wheels turn.

Accept, my friend tells me, Embrace.

Loss is gain.

Now is the new normal.

A Dog’s Paw-pose

 

Each morning when

The sun

Blooms overhead

 

They set out for

a walk

The shih-tzu &

 

the snowy-haired

lady he has

on a short leash.

 

He knows the way

like the back

of his own paw.

 

Lop-Sided Moon

 

The bus shelter at the end of our street grinds its teeth at night.

Sometimes I sit with it, hold its hand, listen to its tale

of drunks and suicides,

of lycanthropes baying at the full moon,

of lonesome Lotharios weeping in their fists

 

I talk to it too about my problems

Of the jig-saw days when pieces don’t fit

Of the times when your heart races

Like a wildebeest on the veldt

But latches onto nothing.

 

After a while we both settle

 

and I head off home

beneath a lopsided moon.