Poets’ Pub readings: Peter Tiernan

Poem written and read by Peter Tiernan.

Walk the Dog

Beautiful and dreadful it was
what we did to each other
and now I’vewashed up here

Making a meditation
of walking a black dog
and a few stars from a rusty gun

The dog in the maw of the black lane
My eyes rattled by daisies in carlights
And the toy box of the city skyline

The dog is swallowed
Then spat out under a street lamp
downyear from me and Mary

I was her shambles of a man
we, a little homeless and many homed
one behind a pizza place
in a bottle lane and lost neon
with a white cat that couldn’t hear
and oh how we called it
through the dim bright night
afraid of what we were losing
turning to one another
and turning away

Walking a black dog
keeping track of it
making it a meditation
street light in the dust of the high daisies
my touch would be gentler now
asking myself the shape in this velvet.