She does this thing. Our seventeen-
year-old dog. Our mostly deaf dog.
Our mostly dead dog, statistically
speaking. When I crouch.
When I put my mouth to her ear
and shout her name. She walks away.
Walks toward the nothing of speech.
She even trots down the drive, ears up,
as if my voice is coming home.
It’s like watching a child
believe in Christmas, right
before you burn the tree down.
Every time I do it, I think, this time
she’ll turn to me. This time
she’ll put voice to face. This time,
I’ll be absolved of decay.
Which is like being a child
who believes in Christmas
as the tree burns, as the drapes catch,
as Santa lights a smoke
with his blowtorch and asks, want one?
I really enjoyed this poem. I like how it starts out all sad and reality and ends with sarcastic violence.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this poem. It is very relatable to many people. The dog is a metaphor for people these days. The poem starts out saying, "When I put my mouth to her ear and shout her name, she walks away." This tragedy describes everday life for many people; how we may try to get someones attention with all our might but they turn a deaf ear. I like how the poem ends in a very unexpected way. The startling line, "as Santa lights a smoke with his blowtorch and asks, want one?" is a very devastating line to many children because all their dreams are being crushed. This line conveys the hurt that many of us go through when we find out that something we have believed to be true and cherished betrays us.
ReplyDeleteI really like this poem! I think what I like most about the poem is the comparison to children on christmas, i don't really know why i like that part so much but i like it.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a dog, so I didn't connect to this feeling as much as other people who have dogs do. But I think the short lines in the beginning really set a mood. The end is really sad, how the dog thinks that the owner is the other way. But in another sense it's neat to see the dogs loyalty. It's almost as if she doesn't doesn't think somethings wrong with her, shes just trying to be the same dog she has always been.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this poem was sad how the deaf dog was trying to listen to its owner's voice but could not hear them. I did not understand the reference to santa at the end, when he was smoking, and lit his smoke with a blowtorch.
ReplyDeleteI really love the playful, humerous tone to this poem. Picturing it in my mind, I laughed out loud at the line: "When I put my mouth to her ear/ and shout her name. She walks away." I don't have a deaf dog, but I do have a stubborn dog that acts similar to the one in the poem.
ReplyDeleteThe last lines also contribute to the tone with Santa "[lighting] a smoke with his blowtorch" and offering you a cigarette. It's kind of irrelevant but it fits.
Funny. I ended up using this poem for my round 2 paper. I really enjoyed reading it, even though it had some sad notes. It seems as if the speaker and his dog have lost the closeness they once shared. The most depressing part involves the speakers hope; he keeps hoping that she will turn and look at him, act like the dog she used to be. The last sentence I found very powerful when I first looked at the poem. “As the drapes catch, as Santa lights a smoke with a blowtorch and ask , want one?" It really blew me away.
ReplyDelete