all bad poetry is sincere
Hello faithful reader. I am more and more choosing blogging over watching a movie, even though I just read watching movies is good for you. Improves your social intelligence with increases in theory of mind skills. Most of the article, again from Scientific American Mind was on the value of fiction. Stories help us understand how people work in a way that conveying the same information in a report format for example doesn’t. TV doesn’t do it though. The stories are to rudimentary the characters too stock the author theorized.
It was a busy day at work and I fell a little further behind but I got out only 10 minutes late to walk Fido to the dog park before it got dark. It was fun hanging out, going every other day at pretty much the same time I am meeting up with the same people and Fido is getting to know some dogs. It has a cocktail party feel today and after wrapping up my 6 week course on self esteem today I acted like a friendly and outgoing person. I’m torn between bringing a lantern or just meeting up with these folks in the dark. Conversations in the dark are different as the day turned into night.
Fido got in some good play but I had to introduce myself to the other guy with a small dog and suggest we walk off so the dogs could play. It worked out. The things I do for that beast, who just wants more attention and dessicated liver the more I give him and I do stuff for him I wouldn’t do for myself. Like talk to a stranger to meet an emotional need.
Got me thinking about dogs so when I looked over my poetry links page I decided I would put up the second poem I wrote about my mom’s dog Tiger. My sister Brenda got him after Mom died and I moved in with her in the old homestead after I got separated so we were buddies again. I tried to write a silly song about him his whole life because I liked to sing to him when the just two of us were hanging out but never came up with anything. I wrote this the day he died.
He got cancer at 14 and since he was a dog we just kept him comfortable until he got pretty close. He didn’t seem to be in pain just got harder and harder to move. I had been carrying him outside to relieve himself and laying him on a thick blanket when he couldn’t. Brenda and I both kind of checked in on him and he seemed to appreciate hanging out in spite of his condition, until he didn’t. We both felt it and I took him to the pound to have him put down.
It was sad but I hadn’t really cried until I left him in the car and went and talked to the guy and he asked me if I had a leash and I said no he didn’t need one. He handed me a red one and told me to walk the dog in. I had sort of a tear hiccup, a mini burst and blubbered out “He can’t walk”, and the guy looked at me like I was a nut. I went and carried him in and laid him on a metal table and told him I loved him and I would bury him deep in the backyard he loved.
I smoked a cigarette and waited until it was over and carried him home in the blanket I had been told to bring. I carried him around in the back yard and cried and cried. I started to dig his whole and I was crying and singing this song and I stopped digging to write it furiously on the back of an envelope. I haven’t been able to find it but know the most sizable portion and hummed out a sufficient ending in the kitchen while my canned chili was microwaving.
Tiger died 2 or 3 days after the space shuttle blew up on re-entry. there were some kid’s science experiments you may recall. Both space shuttle catastrophes touched me deeply and I mean no disrespect. I was also cautioned in sharing this poem because of something my Creative Writing instructor at MCCC Dr Bruce Merkel said: “I don’t want to read any poetry about your dead dog, it was a big deal for you, but for the rest of us that stuff tends to be pretty banal”. Or words to that effect, nonetheless here it is:
The ants and the rats and the astronauts
Were strewn across the sky,
And many many tears were shed
For who knows where their bodies lay?
About the same day Tiger passed away
I buried him in the backyard,
I shed tears for him that I didn’t give them
When death hits home it hits hard.
He was more then a pet
He was a friend to me,
He was a comfort to my mom.
And he howled that day
When the hearse road away,
And he was never really the same.
He lost a little spark and he was slow to bark
But when you called his name, he came.
Multiconstruct 
Gosh, I really enjoy reading your blog. I just read all of your recent posts until this one. Losing a pet is so sad, I still remember the deaths of all my animals- my dog, two parakeets several beta fish, and a couple of hermit crabs. I cried each time it happened.
I’ve been thinking lately about how all of my poetry is terrible and really esoteric to me, and thus hard for an outsider to understand. So your title and poem about Tiger made me feel better. Also, I didn’t think it was a bad poem. That was a jerk move on your instructor’s part. I really like the line “When death hits home it hits hard”
Your poem also reminds me of this song I love. It’s called “Derek” by Animal Collective. It’s a little on the weird side, but it kind of makes me feel better when I think about the death of my first dog.
Here’s the link of you want to listen:
Thanks for your abundance of quality posts, I really enjoy reading them.
Hey Kato, thanks for stopping by and am glad you liked the post. The biggest thing I look for in art is sincerity which is why I like your blog by the way, you have a really open and honest voice. I haven’t read that much of your stuff but feel like I know you nonetheless. Its more important then craftspersonship except in poetry. I’ve read a lot of bad poetry and written my share of it and for me I just waited until something broke loose inside of me and the poetry just started flowing out.
I think the thing that I did besides allow myself to let go and just write without criticism or judgement was read a lot of poetry. I give a lot of credit to my Creative Writing instructor Dr Merkle who made us read and analyze a poem a day when I was in his class and really created a lasting love for the art form and about 10 years later overnight I found I could write poetry. Just took a little stewing. Your a pretty able wordsmith and from your visual work (photography, painting, movies) you have a nice eye for imagery so I bet a great poet lurks within waiting for her time to break out.
I also enjoyed the Animal Collective, I was not familiar with them but have their Youtube mix playing and its quirky and fun. It reminds me of two bands I like a lot. One is an early punk band who showed punk is really about sincerity and DIY rather then anger and screaming as it gets caricatured, Beat Happening. It also makes me think of mewithoutyou an Indie Christian band I was listening to yesterday. Their album ‘It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All a Dream! It’s Alright” is my favorite in a long time. They do this song “In every blade of grass, in every blade of grass, Allah, Allah, in every blade of grass”. Its sweet.
Thanks again for your comment and staying with the blog. The post a day challenge in October really revved me up to post more and I’ve been sticking with it. Is your blog still a secret?
Hey, I’m so sorry I never replied back to this. I didn’t see it until just now!
Thanks for the long and detailed response. I never tire of reading your writing. I appreciate your kind comments beyond measure. I’m really glad you find me to be open and honest, because that’s what I’ve been striving for in my life lately.
I think I could possibly be a better poet if I cared enough. But for me, poetry has always been something where I can just pour out my thoughts and it doesn’t have to be an understandable, well-written thing. Which is probably why I’m so bad at it haha. That and I just feel astronomically silly when rhyming for some reason. Probably need to expand my vocabulary.
I have never heard of those two bands, but I’ll be sure to check them out! I just went on a new music rampage and could do with some more!
Man, maybe I should do a “post a day” challenge of some kind. But I feel my writing becomes trite when I schedule it. But maybe it would help motivate and teach me to make quality posts every time. It can be a New Years Resolution maybe. And yes, my blog is still largely a secret. My closest friend knows about it, and that’s all. I just want to see if there are people out there willing to read what I write without personally knowing me. But I’m still toying with the idea of letting a few more people know.