What’s a Dog Day to you?

A few days before the Poet in the City Dog Days Drop-In on 4th July at Waterstone’s Piccadilly, I tweeted “What’s a Dog Day to you?” On the day, people answered, inevitably, with a few enjoyable poems about actual dogs, but most attendees gamely addressed the langour/oppression/pleasure/discontent of these sultry summer days with favourite or dimly-remembered poems from stalwarts like Auden, Frost, Shakespeare and Lochhead*.

We had delighted in the challenge of raiding our own bookshelves, or googling, or (with the knowledgeable help of Waterstone’s staff) scanning the poetry shelves immediately around us to find our contributions, and the result was an eclectic mix of different but pretty decent poems which don’t often receive the attention they deserve. John Mole, our genial host for the evening, read an apt selection of his own poems and offered some insightful comments on the connections between and influences on some of the other poets quoted.

I felt very privileged also to hear some new poems actually written by some of those in the group. This one, reprinted here by kind permission of the poet, was written especially for the event. It struck me partly because of the depth of feeling in the reading, which I think was appreciated by everyone in the group:

The Dog Days

Sirius is high in the sky and bright—
the dog days are upon us,
those days when even love must twice
be summoned—the firmament too light
for secrets—and what is love out in the open
for all to see.

Every living creature feels the heat,
apathy overcomes desire. Dogs famously lie panting,
tongues lolling—any patch of shade becomes desirable.
Unlooked for, involuntary sleep overtakes the lover
and his love.

We didn’t know—didn’t care about the Dog Days—
we were young—bathed in sweat our love
was consummated—with a hey and a ho
and a hey, nonny no.
Marriage the key we thought—chose the 14th of July—
Bastille Day—Liberté,Egalité,Fraternité
such triumphant symbols.

Funny how we never thought of the red caps,
the clatter of tumbrils, tricoteuses knitting on
as heads rolled. Maybe the Dog Days kept us
from thinking overmuch.
We had no dog to sacrifice, only our kitten Satan,
black as night, and after him Tybalt, Kings of Cats
(except she was a queen).

Not till years later did the Dog Days strike.
Gone for seventeen days as far as you can go
he tole me when the kids had gone to bed—
a girl—twenty years younger than me—
our three children made no odds—
the Dog Days were upon us once again, and
in the southern Hemisphere Sirius shone bright.

Eve Pearce
June 2011
First read publicly on 4th July 2011 at Waterstone’s Piccadilly.

*If you were at the reading and happen to remember either the names of the poets or the titles of any of the poems and would like to record them in more detail on this blog, please add them in a comment below this post, and feel free to tell us why you found them memorable.

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