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Poet’s Corner

A DOG IS FOR LIFE

17-12-2007

Tess

Do people still buy their kids dogs for Christmas? It seems so, all too often with predictable results. Brendan Hawthorne on the present with no future.

Between the steel bars

lies the promise of freedom

Of green fields and summer days

Of crackle cold Autumn runs

in forest filtered sunlight

Picking up sticks

and running

Running back to my family’s arms

Make the car smell of dog before

drying out fully back at home

Running between a bowl of food

and a roaring fire

Between the steel bars

I remember the reality

The kickings and the beatings

The nights outside walking the streets

with no tag and

no name and

when they no longer saw a puppy

a little floppy-jawed wobbly-legged innocent

looking back at them

I got cast aside with the turkey frame

and last year’s must-have toy

to make way for the latest fashion trend

having become too much trouble

even to be acknowledged

Between the steel bars

my eyes send out another appeal

with thousands of other

shaggy dog stories

with one thing in common

We all feel like we’re no-one’s friends

Our tears and sadness dampen our spirit

And how we tremble

as we wait for the keys

to liberate us to a new home

better than the first