Flying dogs

July 21, 2010

 

 

Do dogs dream of flying?

The paws scrabbling during dreams,

the muffled barks, wrapped in cloud;

could it be they chase sparrows

up beyond tight leash of earth?

How far do their brains stretch,

those companions of smooth aliens,

those interpreters of foreign voice?

They know to find meaty meaning

in nonsensical noise we make,

the complicated sound droppings

we float into blank noseless air.

Why then could dog not look beyond

and dream of wings, of slipped collar

soaring?  Little Pegasus of wag,

small brown scented eagle;

scratching blue in basket bliss.

Rainbow of smells is beckoning.

P.S. Cottier

Just a Captain Cook*

Slick, fertile pages of ever-sunny blooming brochures
slip through her avid fingers. She dreams, charts and plots
trips she can never take. From these drifting mind-spores
she grows a giant ship-mushroom and visits hot-spots;
deep-tanned Fiji, jungly Vanuatu and accented ‘France
of the Pacific’, the model thin, elegant exclamation
of la Nouvelle Calédonie. Oh, the tight clenched dance
she dances, the deep-shelf oceanic love she finds, from
one sun-bathing island to the next! Tough travel agents
recognise addiction, her joyous, fungal procrastination,
and refuse to meet those longing, sea-kissed eyes. Graven
idols, their books are like shiny trinkets flogged at micro-nations.
She knows, they know, she can’t go; only sigh and contemplate
the spiced salad of rain-forest, and the waltz of ideal mate.

P.S. Cottier

*Captain Cook is rhyming slang for look.