DOGS
OF
BROOKLYN
By Susie DeFord
Copyright 2012 Susie
DeFord
Smashwords Edition
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Copyright © 2012 by Susie DeFord
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
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10
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Photographs by
Dennis Riley
Designed by: Claudean Wheeler
Cover illustration
by radoma/Fotolia.com & hannahfelicity/Fotolia.com
Published by Dog
Poet Laureate Press
Brooklyn, NY
www.dogpoetlaureate.wordpress.com
www.susiedeford.com
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
CONTENTS
I. THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN
Mystery Woman of the Coney Island Cyclone
These Streets Aren’t Zagat Rated
2. THE DOGS OF BROOKLYN
The Mythical Beast of Brooklyn
DOG PHOTOS BY DENNIS RILEY
“I
think I could turn and live with animals,
they are so placid and
self-contained
I stand and look at them long and long.
They
do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie
awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me
sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
not
one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels
to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.”
—Walt Whitman
Walking home from
the Q train, dogs and coffee
shops split street strut, brownstone
buildings
and big trees bud, shooting up from the sidewalk,
dreadlocked drug
dealers stalk, hanging on changing
corners—the neighborhood
watch while Maclaren
Mafia mommies’ doublewide strollers
scream on by.
Sidewalk block, I
weave and wave through the window
at big, soft Audrey working in
the new chi-chi bakery.
Better than the lemon cookies, she always
says hello
and remembers my
coffee. Soul tracks for sale outside
the Key Food serenade as
macho men swallow me
with their scary smiles. The tough Brooklyn
guys
at Acme Pet Shop on
Vanderbilt Avenue with their old
orange cat Knuckles chuckle at
their Akita pup Lefty
as he jumps up to box me. Head down
Prospect past
Harry and
three-legged Fred lounging, hogging up
the sidewalk looking for
strokes and extra treats
to make up for his hop-walk like a
bouncing spring.
Hit Underhill and
follow the Jah Love guy with his
giant boombox blasting reggae,
doing his slow strange
walking meditation, “Jesus Loves
You” sign strapped
to his back, and I
think he must have, to have given
me this neighborhood so suited
to the swing dance
bopping in my big band mind. Click the
vestibule keys,
check the mail,
doors squeal and slam like a drumbeat.
I dance up the dirty, dark
stairs to the tiny shoebox
apartment where Itty Pity, hearing me
wrestle the locks,
starts howling her
blues: My mama been gone, left me
all alone. Said my mama been
gone, left me all alone.
She run around with them dogs, to keep
the lights on.
The cats hanging in
the windowsills on Sterling Place
arch their backs when the dogs
and I pass by. I wave
at Zigzag barking madly from the window. He
raves,
little Bella’s got him trapped up on the bed, her
chase
and growl intimidating only him. The soft white face
of
Winston Bunny Biallystock III begs a Rapunzel save
from his 3rd
floor tower across the way. He behaves
better than the old man at
number 442, a grouch crazed
leaning over his broom and cane.
Smashed down from
carrying his anger anchor grumbling, he teeters
on bow
legs that look about to snap off sideways. Mistake made,
threw our waste in his can, he launches the poop-bag-bomb
back
at us from behind. It hits the door hard; heart hollow
I drag the
dogs inside realizing I’d taken on his weight.
For Dela
Lightning crack thunder hunger rumble stomach
quease. The banks of the Delaware River heave
water, freezing
rain, sleet. Storm-shivering
angel descends covered in thick-stick brown wire.
Big triangle ears heavy with hearing, big sad mud
puddle eyes
seeking safety within the trees
and arms of a couple of campers trying to keep warm.
They brought you back to Brooklyn with a bellyful
of pups. I met
you on a bustling block,
you were seeking strokes for your swollen frame,
a love junkie, a poet-sniffing dog here to save us
from our heads
full of words and lives
lacking reason. Then Tana came, your golden girl,
your pup that never grew up, just like the little girl
I am
groaning in this grown up body, going
gray, dry, and wrinkly. You nursed us all, licking
scars to heal, ours and your own. My miscarriage
mourning-morning
in purgatory park-bound,
me moping, you mischievously barking, chastising
loud garbage trucks along the way. Park reached,
lost leash leap,
you chased darts of yellow,
gray, green. Carried away, you crashed backs of knees
sweeping ladies off their feet. They weren’t happy.
Moved
to the country, back to the storm shake.
Pursuing porcupines, coming home looking like a tribal
elder, a shaman, a medicine-woman-witch, quills piercing
septum,
lips, cheek. Black magic bumps grew
in your breast—no reprieve. From my own sickness
you were a pilgrimage, a Yatra, a retreat. I traveled
to see you
one last time. Lost in the lush
Catskill woods on the way and I stared out the window
and pretended to enjoy the scenery. When I arrived
you wouldn’t
look at me. You just sat real close,
slower than before until your river dried up. Malignant
memory, heat out in this city, morning empty playground
snow glow
playing powder tracks clear to the dead
grass buried below. I swear, you and the other dogs
of Brooklyn were sent to save me from all these lonely
days in
the autumn heat and trash confetti streets.
The snow has been
replaced with white petals falling
from the apple blossom trees.
Hard green buds
breaking out of thawing limbs extending to the
sun.
A thousand sparrows
scream, hatched and hungry,
soon to be kicked out of the nest.
Some of them
won’t make it, the dogs sniff out their
featherless,
naked pink bodies
scattered on the sidewalk to eat.
I won’t allow it, make
mulched tree stumps instant
cemeteries. The kids from Little
League parade down
7th Avenue, hoodlums
wielding bats in their matching
yellow caps while in the distance
ritual drums beat.
In Prospect Park people start shedding coats
and clothes,
lounging in lumps in
the big field, pale skin blinding
everyone. While the apartment
buildings peer down
from above at their shaded flowers fighting
to bloom.
We all try to suck
in the sun like oxygen after months
of cold gray hibernating. I
claw at my eyes and sneeze,
my body fighting even the seasons
changing. Rain relief,
pollen drowning, the
dogs and I trudge through fat drops
falling. Sally shakes and
sulks while Eva stink-eyes me
for making them walk wet. We’d
all rather stay cozy
in our tiny
apartments instead of be slicked shower sick.
We dance a duck and
dodge beneath splintered old building
awnings and stare at the
sky waiting for the rain to run out.
Sneezing at the pollen beauty of spring,
I want to move
away from the flowers so I won’t want
them anymore.
They call to me and tease—with no pruning
I’m afraid
someday
they’ll overtake me. So I run to cement
gardens, buildings
bloom wildly into the sky, and this is
beautiful to me.
The gardeners with their hard
hats and dirty jeans
tame the wildness of the city lit in
traffic light winks.
But even here the flowers still find me.
They mock me,
pink in their plastic sacks on street corners,
cunningly they
find
their way into my tea. Chamomile, you are
the most exquisite
flower. I adore the charm of your pale
white and green
and wait for you to bloom and dry so I can
taste you golden,
sweet and smooth, let you dance playfully
in my cheeks
and warmly caress my velvet tongue. Slide
down my throat,
and settle so I can breathe you all day,
envelope me
in calm—a cup of you is just enough to
let me know