No matter

how many times you make me feel

as though I must apologise,

I never hear the slightest murmur of a returned regret

or explanation, just the continued self-justified

rant of the hardly innocent, ever smiling, resolutely angry and bitter soul.

Is it possible

to feel more degraded than the way you made me feel,

the contradiction of the argument, the swallowing

of the pride in which would allow my dog

that barks down my ear, growls with impatience,

that slowly salivates and allows to drip

…

drip

…

drip…

the stink of saliva juice that is forced upon me,

to back away for a day, an hour, a second, a sheltered second

from the storm that I wreck upon myself.

 

The black dog, the cloud that hides the dark

and bruised lightning is mine… mine, made

for me and those who listen to the gracious howl

of desperate demeaning laughter that hides my face.

An unapproved fight in the back alley,

the dog stalking down each misfired cognitive connection,

hiding in the mist but snapping, snarling and without a shred

of sympathy hunts me down like a white hart

is haunted by the sound of a wolf’s clinging and diseased breath.

 

You are all I see, past them all,

you are in the corner

Of the room even when I paint you out, paint you the colour of black.

Even Hannah

cannot completely destroy the dog,

though bless her she drowns that blasted fucker each and every time.

I can only silence the dog when I listen

to the softness of your song, when I hear you

play the guitar with the grace of an angel weeping

at the injustice of allowing dogs to live, breed and bite.

You are that angel

for now and even Hannah smiles

in blissful repose at your song.

 

Ian D. Hall 2014