[Rick Mullin]

Bailey

I’d call the operation on your leg
a Pyrrhic victory. It fixed the tear,
but left you with a twisted gait. And pain.
An animal with 15 years at best,
you seemed to jump from 4 to maybe 10.
I let you hobble in a fenced-in yard.
Like me, you have a problem with the neighbors.

Today, beneath the hemlock tree, we find
a softball frozen in the winter mud.
I kick it loose and toss it on the grass.
Of course you chase it through the ragged shadows,
overshoot and hunker back. You nearly
swallow it. Above us in the blue
two urban raptors circle toward the sun.

___

Been a little busy with a few word changes. "out" to "up" to "loose" in S2 L3, for example.
Also, converted S2 to present tense.

My original draft was only S2.

___


"jagged" to "ragged" S2 L4

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[Julie Steiner]

A gentle little poem that sort of meanders along and is just allowed to happen, without a visible agenda. Probably won't suit everyone's mood, but it suits mine now.

I smiled at

     Like me, you have a problem with the neighbors.

[Susan McLean]

I like it, Rick. The main idea I had for it was to consider "vultures" for "raptors." I see vultures circling all the time in my mom's neighborhood. The raptors probably wouldn't be interested in the dog, but the vultures might be keeping an interested eye on it.

Susan

[Rick Mullin]

Thanks Julie,

No agenda, really, but some tension intended between constraint and freedom, disability and mobility, mud-froze ball and blue sky sun, victory and ultimate defeat followed by broader victory (?). That last line in stanza 1 is intended to bring a smile, but it has a little job to do as well. Dog and owner are both inside the fence where the action takes place. I'm going for a cinematic effect in the last line. Or trying to resolve such an effect through the poem.

It is, on the one hand, a sort of diary entry and easy reading. On the other hand, ... or am I reading too much into it? ~,:^)



Hi Susan,

Thanks. Raptor works better for several reasons here, first and most banal: it was a pair of yellow tail hawks gliding in circles in the sun that I watched while Bailey gnawed his new softball. Also, we see a lot of hawks in the sky in Essex County, NJ, part of the mega suburbs of New York. I once saw a pair of bald eagles! Never saw vultures. Also, if I'm not mistaken, vultures are cowardly douche bags that wait until you're dead before they start in on you. Raptors, on the other hand, swoop down and carry small pets into the blue. Lastly, I don't mean for the birds to pose a direct threat. Bailey is 90 pounds, and I'm a little heavier. But I like that they bring a grim reaper element to the offing. Seeing them was the prompt for the poem (there is "first thought, best thought", but there is also "first line, last line", which I actually believe). And I like using the word "raptor". "hawk" would bring the kind of specificity that would blow the effect I'm going for at the close. "vulture" would be hitting it way too hard.

So, maybe I'm definitely reading too much into it~! I'm bored, I guess. No inner resources.

Thanks again Julie and Susan,
RM

[Jim Moonan]

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Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

A gentle little poem that sort of meanders along and is just allowed to happen, without a visible agenda.

A gentle little poem to be sure, and though Julie's right that there is no visible agenda, there is something quite profound that runs below the surface. "Pyrrhic" tipped me off to it. A dog's life is more than the sum of its years; much more. Especially for those of us who befriend them. To win a battle that takes such a toll is hard to accept. But dogs soldier on. I think you've done a remarkable job at holding sentimentality at bay. I think you achieve something quite difficult and unusual in your addressing the dog directly throughout. It never turns to "I". The N has Dr. Dolittle powers.

I don't know if you've struck the right tone to end the poem. It feels all the sudden heavy when up to that point it was wistful with a dash of light-heartedness.

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[Rick Mullin]

Thanks Jim,

But I mean for that closing line to be, on the whole, extremely light. The birds of prey are drifting in loping circles toward the sun. Kind of a rising to oblivion.

Rick

[John Riley]

It is a sweet poem, in the good way, but the hint of foreboding with the hemlock tree also stands out. A hint of the future, or maybe it's my gloom protruding.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Notionally ekphrastic Rick . I picture this so clearly. I am inside the frame. In this world there are only dog people and those who are not.

Profundity handled lightly.

Jan

[Rick Mullin]

Thanks John and Jan,


I guess a resolution of some kind of resigned fatalism is the feeling I'm going for at the end of the poem. Overall, though, it is a dog poem. Jan has a point about audience reception.


Rick

[Max Goodman]

This has grown on me over several readings.

The line about the neighbors I loved from the first. I wonder whether following that line up by showing Bailey reacting to a neighbor might be worthwhile. I don't think the poem would be harmed by being a bit longer than sonnet length.

Already, this gives an experience of Bailey that's worth a reader's time.