[New-Poetry] Finalists for the Lenore Marshall Prize

[Anny Ballardini]

Dogs are sometimes strange creatures, even if I would love to have one... 
See if you want to use the double _into_?

 I willed its tail to rise
> like a flag, signifying walk or fetch,
> the hair along its spine to remain
> combed into into place by sun-
> light and neglect.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anthony Lawrence" <ajlawrence1 at bigpond.com>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Finalists for the Lenore Marshall Prize


> Thought I'd post a new poem to the list:
> 
> Communication
> 
> The way a dog can look at you
> from somewhere beyond its face
> might be a projection of my own
> inability to understand that
> for some, eye contact can be un-
> settling to the point of panic attacks
> or catatonic episodes turning
> their engines over inside the blood.
> I once looked at a dog in a way
> I knew to be confrontational.
> I looked, then averted my eyes.
> On turning back, my gaze
> had been met with an intensity
> so pure it seemed devotional.
> I found a sign on the wall
> of the wrecking yard I'd entered
> on a walk at the end of a bleak,
> reclusive time. I studied the sign
> overlong, and it did no good -
> the dog came to me where I was
> kneeling in metal shavings,
> rust and windshield glass.
> Its breeding fell somewhere
> between a malnourished Wolf
> Hound from Ireland and a bear,
> and it offered me the mauve
> striations of its gums, exposed
> in the way a grin can become
> a grimace, then transmogrify
> into a snarl. Its breath contained
> the breaking-down of a meal
> of carrion, and I said "Good boy"
> or "Come on, what's your name?"
> and I looked for a way to save face.
> The dog sighed, then made a sound
> I took to be a decision that
> clearly, I was not its equal
> and nowhere near worth the trouble.
> Having misread the language
> of the body and its intentions,
> I stood and made ready to leave.
> I wanted the dog to look elsewhere
> from beyond its black-and-tan
> snouted face. I willed its tail to rise
> like a flag, signifying walk or fetch,
> the hair along its spine to remain
> combed into into place by sun-
> light and neglect. But the hand
> I'd begun to extend as a token
> of a stand-off come to an end
> was taken and taken, and I'd like
> to say I have a vague memory
> of shouting "There's no reason..."
> but I screamed until, hearing
> the throat music of submission
> and alarm, it released me, turned
> and ran. I lifted my hand in no wave
> of farewell, and saw the marks
> of teeth in my skin, and a break
> in the knuckle where bone
> was coming through. The dog,
> meanwhile, had found something else
> to torment or maim, among car
> body parts and overturned tins.
> I left it at that and made for the road,
> and did not look back to see
> if my blood were painting the dust.
> I stared straight ahead like a man
> for whom contact with the eyes
> of dogs and humans, when made
> and mirrored with bleak intention,
> had returned him to a place
> where communication leads to nothing
> but remorse and grief and harm.
> 
> 
> 
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
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