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Sunday, February 03, 2013

Your Sunday Poem

Considering the gun debate raging on outside the doors, this poem by Billy Collins, from his book, "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes," seems apt. This book is available at your local bookstore in paperback, as are most of Collins' works.  Buy a book of poetry today. Make a poet happy.

Another Reason Why I don't 
Keep a Gun in the House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

4 comments:

Alon Perlman said...

Billy is tight again in his construction. Famous Seamus

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

Well, more than just your Sunday readers appreciate Billy Collins. Here is a quote out of the New York Daily News:

"Caroline Kennedy, chairwoman of the travel hub’s centennial committee; “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon; Grammy winner Melissa Manchester; and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will be on hand.

Collins, of course, memorialized the Terminal’s golden clock as “the still point” in the city’s center in his poem “Grand Central.”


Nice invite, nice company Billy! I like to see poets get to be featured at big events like this (like inaugurations!) so we don't seem to just be a nation of gun-totin', sports worshipin', beer drinkers but that we also to have a veneer of higher civilization.

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

I'm not sure if this link will take you where it took me in this book, but I hope so. I googled, "oboe beethoven barking dog."



http://books.google.com/books?id=eqDnRRdF53QC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=oboe+beethoven+barking+dog&source=bl&ots=EQRDOSPWKQ&sig=NvrrOkfeMG4UORdQ3v4X5gvxfvg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OOcOUYzlC4nE2gXLnoHABQ&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=oboe%20beethoven%20barking%20dog&f=false

Hope the link works this time.