friday writings #2 seven dogs

late to the party again, i was working on a poem for the prompt theme, but it's not going to get finished in time, so i offer this instead. also, i saw the new badge thing, how does that work?

seven dogs 

i drank nine beers in nine bars

a tribute to nine women who done me wrong

walking home i walked past the red house

over yonder

same one i’ve walked pass ninety-nine and one-half times before

i stopped right there and thought, how drunk am i?

so i did the math

nine bars, nine beers, nine times nine is eighty-one

in nineteen eighty-one i was nine years old

and in the nineth hour of the nineth day

of my nineth winter, i walked this very path

with the same nine mailboxes on the sidewalk to the left

and the same nine garden gnomes in the garden to the right

ninety-nine and one-half newspapers piled up on the doorstep

of the red house over yonder

and that’s when i saw what i saw

the thing that haunts me forever

i saw seven dogs fighting in the alley

for a leftover chicken bone

seven brothers forgot their bond and surrendered to the hunger

i saw their teeth grow long and their eyes grow sinister

i saw mortal fear up close and personal

and then i saw the blackest crow i ever saw

swoop down and steal that chicken bone

then perch up high on a steeple, seven tail feathers pointed due east

i saw seven dogs in disbelief

seven dogs, one dead chicken

and a tax collector in the blackest crow-feathered trench coat i ever saw

nine creatures total 

2021

posted for poets and storytellers united