By Grace of Dog (Videoed Death-Byte of CNN)

Damian Garside

Turns out
that having plumbed the terror coefficient of
God's one good eye,
they find themselves
clinging to His grace like
burning napalm.

Those images sick, the ones they return with:
cats boiled in oil
puppies

snapped in half as
if their spines were
stalks or
reeds
or tree-twigs

and children
skinned with Bowie knives as if nothing
could be more natural as if
it were just slipping
the point of a blade beneath soft rind.

But a dog,

a dog
is predetermined to do its last, faithful
level best

in death
to do as dogs do
deliver no surprises

perform
according to expectations, no better, no worse

best, last, dumb apologist
for that dull, bottoming–out thing inside us they call humanity.

LitNet: 20 December 2005

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