Nebraska 17 - Norfolk and Pepper

Another poem I have posted here previously - just over 2 years ago which I find scarey, thinking it much more recent - but it fits into this running theme that has captured my interest at least: the first wild dog mentioned was in Niobrara [see most previous Nebraska post] and the other references to that place are accurate, and my wild dog was called Pepper - which I think I have just remembered now and not when I wrote the poem - and I had him when I lived in Norfolk and he did kill my pet red squirrel, and the rest of the story is true too.

Wild Dog

My dog was wild – not quite the wolf

chained up under Uncle Clyde’s porch in that town

where you had to collect water from a pump and

shit in an outhouse the local boys would push

over whilst you were performing – but it was

obvious the day I got home and found my tamed

red squirrel torn to pieces. So it was time to let

the dog go, doing unto another like that unacceptable

even in my childlike take on the rights and wrongs

of things [and a double tragedy in such a concurrent

loss] but it was around a week later when the farmer

returning its lead said his dog now was chasing sheep

and running free and living a life that eviscerating my

other pet was just the manifestation of what should be.

And this is interesting as well, but it also just occurred to me - these apocalypses -  that I would never have called it a dog lead back then but instead a dog leash, so does the English naming alter things, even if in such a small way? All this reliving the past mixing memories of time, place and language.