I love Michael Ondaatje - I didn't realize that he had written so many poems about dogs until I went back and re-read some of his poetry after I got into dogs and was pleasantly surprised!
Here's some of my favourites:
Postcard from Piccadilly Street
Dogs are the unheralded voyeurs of this world.
When we make love The spaniel shudders
Walks out of the room,
She's had her fill of children now
But the bassett - for whom
We've pretty soon got to find a love object
Apart from furniture or visitors' legs -
Jumps on the bed and watches.
It is a catching habit having a spectator
And appeals to the actor in both of us,
In spite of irate phone calls from the SPCA
Who claim we are corrupting minors (the dog being one and a half).
We have moved to elaborate audiences now.
At midnight we open the curtains
Turn out the light
And imagine the tree outside
Full of sparrows
With infra red eyes.
From Michael Ondaatje's Rat Jelly
The Strange Case
My dog's assumed my alter ego.
Has taken over - walks the house
Phallus hanging wealthy and raw
In front of guests, nuzzling
Head up skirts
While I direct my mandarin mood.
Last week driving the baby sitter home.
She, unaware dog sat in the dark back seat,
Talked on about the kids' behaviour.
On Huron Street the dog leaned forward
And licked her ear.
The car going 40 miles an hour
She seemed more amazed
At my driving ability
Than my indiscretion.
It was only the dog I said.
Oh she said.
Me interpreting her reply all the way home.
Flirt and Wallace
The dog almost
Tore my son's left eye out
With love, left a welt of passion
Across his cheek
The other dog licks
The armpits of my shirt
For the salt
The smell and taste
That identifies me from others
With teeth which carry broken birds
With wet fur jaws that eat snow
Suck the juice from branches
Swallowing them all down
Leaving their mouths tasteless, extroverted,
They graze our bodies with their love
Birth of Sound
At night the most private of a dog's long body groan.
It comes with his last stretch
In the dark corridor outside our room.
The children turn.
A window tries to split with cold
The other dog hoofing the carpet for lice.
We're all alone.
This isn't Michael Ondaatje, and it isn't about dogs, but it's one of my favourite poems of all time.
And it makes me very sad every time I read it.
i like my body when it is with your body.
It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does, i like its hows.
i like to feel the spine of your body and its bones,
and the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which i will again and again and again kiss,
i like kissing this and that of you, i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric furr,
and what-is-it comes over parting flesh....And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill of under me you so quite new
from & (1925) ee cummings
I found this on a website and I had to share it here:
DOG HAIKU - anon.
I love my master;
Thus I perfume myself with
This long-rotten squirrel.
I lie belly-up In the sunshine,
happier than You ever will be
Today I sniffed
Many dog butts-I celebrate
By kissing your face.
I sound the alarm!
Paperboy-come to kill us all-
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Mailman Fiend-come to kill us all-
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Meter reader-come to kill all-
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Garbage man-come to kill us all-
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I sound the alarm!
Neighbor's cat-come to kill us all!
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!
I lift my leg and Wiz on each bush.
Hello, Spot - Sniff this and weep
How do I love thee?
The ways are numberless as My hairs on the rug.
My human is home!
I am so ecstatic I have Made a puddle
I hate my choke chain - Look, world, they strangle me!
Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack!
Sleeping here, my chin On your foot - no greater bliss -
well, Maybe catching cats
Look in my eyes and Deny it.
No human could Love you as much I do
The cat is not all Bad-
she fills the litter box With Tootsie Rolls
Dig under fence-why?
Because it's there. Because it's There.
Because it's there.
I am your best friend,
Now, always, and especially
When you are eating.
You may call them fleas,
But they are far more -
I call Them a vocation
My owners' mood is Romantic-I
lie near their Feet.
I fart a big one.
You are my stamp pad
The mud I rolled in makes nice
Patterns on white shirts.
Squirrels, birds, and cats
Run everywhere, taunting me
I must chase them all.
It is morning now
I lick your sleeping face
Wake up - play with me!
I see my human
Thus I must take wing and fly
Is my name "Down, dog!"?
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