On last Friday evening I received an email with bad news from my brother which I'd like to share:

Hello Family,

I hope you all are well. Today we lost our pet Trixie. She was a victim of time. We enjoyed all of the 17 years that she shared her life with ours and brought us all happiness and love. She was indeed an angel of a dog. She was put to sleep this evening after fighting a terminal illness. Her last pictures are in the "Pets" gallery. We share them with you. For all of you that know Trixie, you know why we miss her...

My brother has been a dog lover since he was a small boy, having some kind of dog for as long as I can remember. I first met Trixie when I visited my brother and his family for the Family Reunion '97. When I went to visit him again in 2004 I was shocked to find Trixie was still alive. She took a day to warm up to me but when she did I was lavished with attention, same as before. I've always thought the life expectancy of canines was around 12 years tops. I sit here today amazed that a dog, any dog, could live 17 years. Trixie is nearly as old as my brother's youngest daughter.

This posting is dedicated to Trixie, one of the sweetest pets anyone would ever want. World leaders could have learned a thing or two from that dog. I know she will be missed.

Today's poems:


You Can Be Mortal Now

Daybreak begins as a velveteen morning, but quickly turns into:

-A solemn river of tombstones floating across the border.

-Bell tolls that suddenly resemble a frog's mating call.

-A Dutch dyke scribbling the word "queer" onto wooden shoes.

-Farm boys that learn how to cornball a wolf's cup.

-A sack placed over the head of humanity's embrace.

-Culinary schools mistaken for black birds baked in a pie.

-A derelict part of town mutating into a rusty bicycle chain.

-Sea sickness depicted as a troubled girl with amber hair.

-Garbage that develops wings like a falcon poised for the swoop.

-And sex, treated as if it were just headlines in the morning paper.


Romance, Wearing Orthopedic Shoes

The day we met?

Well, I do recall a few things as if it were yesterday. First off,
I was wearing my favorite orthopedic shoes and she had
on swollen eyes that required pushing back into their
sockets. I distinctly remember a tattooed road map
to babylon and how it stopped to pick mushrooms
along the way, even though they could be
potentially poisonous. My guardian angel
was there to offer-up sheer madness while hers
suggested we take the red booth in the far corner of
the lounge. How the odor of nicotine held a hammer-lock
on the grimmy walls. And the bar stools insisted they were
not accustomed to tipping. The bomb had not been fitted with
a clock yet, so Janis wailed from the jukebox and both the
restrooms had ample time to complain about chronic
unemployment. We tried for ninety minutes to
put our spectator sports into words and even
declared that we'd give our pets elaborate
funerals, but in the end we took
separate commuter trains
home, unaware of the vast numbers
of cranes that dotted the cityscape or the
smooth violet sky that lurked just outside the
train's windows. And for whatever the reason, we
completely ignored the faint vapor of grandiose self-delusion
that whispered, softly, "Replica."


Poems first published: http://sawbuckpoems.blogspot.com/
Copyright 2007 by Maurice Oliver. All Rights Reserved.
Visit my e-zine: http://www.concelebratory.blogspot.com/
and music blog: http://www.medleymakersant.blogspot.com/