A PLACE TO CELEBRATE

Grasping the Nettle

http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/docs/McKinlay.pdf

DOG WRESTLING

A Savage Tale For

This Year of The Serpent

2*13

Stars shift on Destiny’s map

Illuminating our Internment

BOOK THE FIRST

Stay.Beg.Rollover.Fetch.Sic him.

A DOG’S TALE

*

1

At a new year by the moon

In the annals of the snake

The Dark came to an ebon isle

In the great salt sea lake.

*

Enter Wild Boy of Borneo,

Alpha male on the make

The Dog Wrestling Champion

For sure; this year of

The Snake.

*

A bloody scourge to fascists

Not at all that easy to take

A fiery sideshow for others

Raised to be burnt at the stake.

*

2

The Mild Boy of Borneo

Was first born an old man

Living backwards till finally

He got to where his life began

*

An unsung well hung anti hero

He’s still his own biggest fan

A boy not a predestined top dog

Doing best always, what he can

*

Shiftless pins on Destiny’s map

Mark his true self’s roiling foment

While he wrestles The Chaos

Exorcising his soul’s

Dark lament

*

3

Mad Boy out of Wild Borneo

Goes down on all fours to attack

Wrangling his way always up

Pinning The Dark Dog

on its back.

*

Bells sound fifteen rounds

Confounding the neighbors

Bloody sweaty tears stain stadia

With their herculean labors.

*

Fighting White Dog of Borneo

Up on two legs teeth bared

A victor bays at the moon,

Eyes bottomless,

nostrils flared.

*

4

Switch on Borneo Idol this Friday

Presented by popular request

While all knowing Spam Hounds

Cheer on what they can sell best.

*

Supporting this their chosen one

A boy who was once an old man

Taking on The Dark’s demon host

Vanquishing them as only he can.

*

Lawn mowing urbanized maggots

Think they’ve lived; stood its test

Choose to stay home this night

With chips and dips; and to rest.

*

5

He chooses night’s bats and insects

As a jolly companionable crowd

With whom his moist lone thoughts

Are allowed to be uttered aloud

*

To dream deeply of great battles

While mute hedge trimming hermits

Carve their monkish cells out of life

Venturing out when weather permits

*

High bells toll the beating heart

Hand bells tell the endless rounds

Sucking breath through gums

and broken teeth

Growling curses the

only sounds

*

6

Caught napping

He’ll be torn apart

Shredded like slow cooked meat

Once beaten; to be eaten

By rats from off the street

*

So it’s hard practice ‘tween fights

Fighting shadows his way to spar

With time out to crash and learn

Why does a dog chase a car?

*

But as dark forest and flaking rust

Or concrete cannot stop this man

Nor slash wired stone wall

Or Dark Dog may deter

Destiny’s plan.

*

BOOK THE SECOND

Moon about town. 

WHITE DOG TRUE DOG

1

The cockerels are quiet

Lost in life’s darkened suburbs

A pack chase madly my Moon

*

But she’s here near my heart

Held close in hope’s

softly soft cocoon.

2

A furtive white doe

Grazes love’s heaven lit field’s

Upon a diamond strewn scape

*

Falling light wakening shadows

Neath night’s dart pierced cape.

3

My she dog’s a true dog

A fleet bitch whose frightened foot

Treads ground that would swallow

*

Her bright heart taking flight

Up and out; if love can I will follow.

4

From a heart’s view above

Love’s Armageddon outspreads

A gory banquet before our gaze

*

Passion’s fires annihilating all

Forbidden nights consume our days.

5

He utters sounds of love

Painful ambition not easily thwarted

Driven forward onto passion’s spike

*

To drown in her body’s well

Breaching at last her trembly dike.

6

She waits his demands

Embracing pain while true to herself

Still and closed to all else about her

*

Compliant with his urging needs

Assuring he will never be without her.

BOOK THE THIRD

She is a proper myth.

PROSERPINA

A rabbit abroad on Eden’s greendesert

The moon shines dazzlinglight on night

*

Anxiety writes hername in blue flowers

Small teeth stay sharpwell out of sight

*

Anywhere she soars to the edge of life

Sweet imprints of her clearsoul’s mark

*

The sound of a tiny fearbreath freezing

Chills the twilightwarm air of The Dark

*

Forces from beyondlife leech living out

Obliterating her hope for heaven’s ire

*

Quick engulfed by The Dark upreaching

For a refugebeyond chaos and hell fire

*

Downstretching finding hiddenground

A selfbedrock of unquestioning Ibelief

*

Her flamepassion incinerating love

Awakening hate in the shiver of a leaf

*

Mutewitness night spins from its web

The story of a ravishment of innocence

*

Is sisterwoman’s dire hearthtale of grief

The prologue to a mother’s vengeance?

*

A childvictim of The Dark beyond night

Summer with winterdread in her heart

*

Now her tapestrytale in its ebonshades

Has each of its cast figures in their part

BOOK THE FOURTH

White Dog.

GETTING ON WITH IT

Once broken in lust’s gale a stem never

Grows straight

Without affection’s crude tender touch

Death’s bell’s always too late.

When every new day is dire vengeance

For love withheld

Tomorrow’s loom weaves only shrouds

For hope’s savage battlefield.

Pass over doubt’s maggots you’ll never

Ever best

Take a grip on love’s dreams surviving

Blind fate’s cruelest test.

Don’t ever judge a truth against reason

Or otherwise miscast it

Applying time’s balm to a heart’s pain

Don’t try to outlast it.

If conflict is all you foretell in the winter

Yet to unfold

Pause. Think. Draw a last deep breath

Stay firm in your hold.

Pull love’s barb from out of your heart

And live

Accepting loss as Heavens’ prize purse

And grinning; still give.

BOOK THE FIFTH

He says.She says.

MINE ALL MINE

HE

To love her gently at a remove When instinct is demanding he take her

To lie to himself that her heart is closed Because he can not make her

To bay lustfully of their undying love And in a moment still forsake her

SHE

To bind their union in eternity A living knot that will hold not break him

To hope as dark night looms That Love’s inner clarion must wake him

To fight in joy against a foe She begs Life’s Maker to not unmake him

BOOK THE SIXTH

Grasping the Nettle.

AN END TO IT?

Grasping the Nettle

Falling from heights of folly

Grinding ground bedrock splits apart

Broken up into smithereens

Shittering shattering a fissured heart

Eyes sewn close shut at last

Open in time to see a laughing Dawn

The Dark succumbs to life

As upon his death he is finally born

Swaddled in a dream’s maze

Of what may not be ~ life’s purpose?

Choking on clots of memory?

To live on upturned? An angry tortoise?