LIFE IN THE SHADOW of DOGS

(or)
Crimes Against the Body
 
Excerpts From My New Book

Title Poem

 
LIFE IN THE SHADOW OF DOGS
 
How does one live in the singular,
without love I mean,
without compassion,
without that connection
that sparks the living world?
Oh I know some do,
  I think most often by chance
 and not by choice.
And God be with them
I say.
 
I am a slow stepped man,
a traveler in time
who is lost
within the perimeter
of a new day rising.
I move in long deep steeps
 chocking up little bits
of sunshine
as I go,
like old memories
laid on the beach,
floundering without sunlight
as I slip behind shadows
of the moon.
.
 
We were on the road that night
down Louisiana way,
when I saw an old brown dog
limping across the street
on just three feet.
It was something I carried
within me
for quite some time.
More baggage
to weigh me down
I thought
 
and yet I watched,
engrossed within the struggle
of that poor dog’s life
as if it were my own life.
How is it we find time
to worry about such things
as the struggles of an old lame dog
we’ve never sat eyes on before,
lost and left to his own devise
 and within the same shadows as I.
 
I still remember the decaying way
he carried his tail
tucked into himself,
like he was afraid
the sky might fall in on him.
The scene is still pressed
into the curvature of my mind,
like a scene
seen through a dirty windshield
slowly passing
between dilapidated buildings
 and cluttered back lots
 
where I watched,
paralyzed with grief
as greasy children
with large green eyes
laughed in stripped shirts
while throwing rocks
at that mangy old dog,
shivering at the contemplation
of another poor soul,
much like myself,
who was lost and in a stupor
 under the cover
of another
 hot Louisiana night.
 
uTAH jAY

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