two dogs

[mat james]

Two dogs
Chasing an orange cat
Pandemonium of pain and fear
Then no noise

Dogs leave
Chased off by the victims owner
My neighbor

Holding her cat
Helpless
Jaws widen to suck in air
That won’t enter
Ribs crushed
Not a whisper
Confused
As still no breath
Enters;
Only death

I feel pity
Then fly to torn wings
Strewn around my garden


Mat.

[lizzytysh]

HEARTBREAKING

As a cat owner and cat lover, dogs go for the chase and conquest. Rarely meaning to kill, they do, and then wonder what happened that the cat won't play anymore. Some dogs... especially in groupings of two or more, morph from the domestic dog into the wild pack mentality and do mean to kill.

I don't understand the meaning of your final two lines, Mat. Did you have birds that were also killed in this melee?

My heart is with your neighbour and her dear, departed cat. Heartbreaking.


~ Lizzy

[Alsiony]

Oh I love this

I like the last two lines - which I took to indicate that, while the cat is the fatal victim in this case, he also knows the taste of blood himself.

Such is the circle. Such is the picture and connection of all things.

(sorry if I am reading it wrong!)

Thanks for sharing this Mat

A
x

[lizzytysh]

I see it now, Alsiony. Thanks for clarifying that. In my feelings for the cat, I missed it altogether.


~ Lizzy

[Alsiony]

It was just what it made me think of Lizzy, I wasn't making a negative reference to your comment at all. Far from it, and I'm honestly sorry if that is how I seemed.

One occasion a good many years ago, whilst in a friends car driving home, we came into a particularly slow bit of traffic. The nearer we got it became obvious what had happened to cause the major slow down - a dog had been hit and was lying in the road. I shouted to my friend to stop the car and we got out. The dog was some kind of mongrel, he looked like a stray to be honest. I knelt beside him and told my friend to phone the RSPCA, and then the most extraordinary thing happened, because the dog suddenly grabbed at my arm. His threw his front leg forward and was trying to grip my arm with his claws, coughing and gasping in his effort to try and pull himself towards me. I was saying 'shhh shhh' because he was so badly injured that I thought he should stay still, but it ended up with him half laying across my lap with his head on my thigh. All I could do was support the back of his head with my hand and hold his paw with my other hand, and repeatedly saying 'shh shh it's ok' to him, and we stayed there like that, waiting for the RSPCA to come. I can still see him in my minds eye, how he was breathing, how he smelt. He kept eye contact with me for almost the entire time, and then suddenly staring deep at me, the light in his eyes extinguished, and he was gone. The RSPCA did come and recover his body, I didn't want them to remove my coat from him, and they obliged and took him away in it. I will never forget it, although there was nothing I could do for him, I am just glad that he wasn't alone. Imagine to die alone in the road with people driving not just past you, but going out of their way to get around you. I still find it hard to believe this aspect of some people to this day - that with all the drivers around (there were a great many because it was rush hour) that no-one stopped, that he was just an obstacle in the road - in the way of people getting home from work. Afterwards my friend said to me that he couldn't believe that people were beeping their horns because myself and the dog were in the way. I still find that to be absolutely ridiculous in the worst possible way. I was so angry and so devastated by that at the time, and these days I still cannot lend such neglect any kind of favour whatsoever. I wrote a poem about him, but as anyone will know - writing a poem about something does not always, in some cases alleviate your feelings too well at the time.

This is one way that I can strongly identify with Mat's words in his poem regarding witnessing a creature dying. I really wasn't being dismissive of that. It is an incredible, inexplicable and thoroughly consuming and heart-wrenching thing to witness and be a part of somehow. In this particular instance, for me it was a deep honour in many senses.

And while Mats poem reminded me of the great circle of things, in connection with this memory, for me personally I am also reminded about when the circle can sometimes make absolutely no good sense at all.

Sorry Mat - I hope you didn't mind my story.

A
x

[Karren B]

Alsiony

I love my dog and if he were ever involved in an accident (he wouldn't do that to me though!)I only hope there would be someone like you around to be with him. I too can't believe the callousness of some drivers when they hit an animal, it makes you wonder what they would do if they hit a person.

Karrren B
xx

[carm]

Mat writes:

Two dogs
Chasing an orange cat
Pandemonium of pain and fear
Then no noise

Dogs leave
Chased off by the victims owner
My neighbor

Holding her cat
Helpless
Jaws widen to suck in air
That won’t enter
Ribs crushed
Not a whisper
Confused
As still no breath
Enters;
Only death

I feel pity
Then fly to torn wings
Strewn around my garden

The poem leaves one with a sense of shivering helplessness as its words embrace a strange, yet familiar sense of awe. It seems strange in the way it all unfolds, yet it becomes familiar in a way, when we come to acknowledge 'the nature of things'. But still, we weep as powerful emotions shift interchangeably from compassion to sympathy when no breath enters, only death.

.......

Strewn around your garden,
torn wings. Confused.
No noise, not even a whisper
when no breath enters. Only death.
I feel pity.

Cat leaves,
that pandemonium of pain and fear.

Your neighbor, holding her cat,
ribs crushed. Confused.
No noise, not even a whisper
when no breath enters. Only death.
I feel pity.

Dogs leave
a pandemonium of pain and fear.

Mat, I hope you don't mind the mixing up of your words so as to shape a response of sorts to your original poem.

[mat james]

Hi all,
thanks for the comments.
I have been working on that moment and here is my latest attempt at capturing the symphony.
I usually settle on the original draft, but
I'll keep working on it.
I have yet to work a title.
Regards, Mat.


Two dogs
chasing an orange cat
pandemonium of pain
fear and banging bins
screech to silence

Swept away by a petite neighbor’s
flailing curse of
“You mongrels!”
dogs waft an exit

Her cat-cuddling fingers, cradle,
helpless
jaws widen to suck in air
that won’t enter
crushed ribs and lungs

meow-less motions;
confused eyes seize mine
as still no breath
balloons to hope:
only silky death
and pity stray in and rest
among our three-way stillness

...then fly to torn wings
strewn around my garden


Mat.