Goyas Dog

Ray Liversidge is an Australian poet whose poems have been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, Britain, Northern Ireland, Canada and the USA. He has written a book of poetry Obeying the Call, a verse novel The Barrier Range and a chapbook The Divorce Papers, which was published this year. Also this year his poems will appear with two other poets in Triptych Poets: Issue One. He is currently working on a manuscript on the work and lives of dead poets. His website at www.poetray.wordpress.com.

Goya's Dog

You think: is it swimming or sinking?
You obey the dog blindly and mimic
Its movement. And you? You dust
For animal prints, suggest the "lonely pooch"
Sleep outside its frame of reference.

You kennel the dog on a gallery wall.
You remember the dog from history.
You see the dog as something else.

Some do the things that doggies do;
Some, let slip the leash, wreak havoc;
Others remain impounded awaiting their release.
And you—dog's best friend—you paint the mongrel black,
Sling it a bone, turn a deaf ear to its howling.