Once Upon A Time Or The Dog Had 9 Lives Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

When I was just a youngster I had a dog.
He ate apples and grapes on the fly.
He also was an English Boxer.

Of course I named him Marcel Cerdan
We had a long loving relationship despite
his long rumbling farts.

On the same street lived a neighbor dog
a German shepherd of the perfect kind.
A spit image of a wolf who was always

locked behind a wire fence.
It growled and barked each time we passed.
Those were the days when few of us

had pets on a leash.
So there was this time when the dogs met
on the asphalt and before I knew they went

at each other's throat.
By the time I got up close to separate them
my dog had the other four legs up on its back

squealing like hell with mine standing over
staring me straight in the eye with his
enormous right paw on the opponent's chest

waiting for my order to kill that never came.
then came the day we had to leave
on a vacation and I had to leave him with

a neighbor friend.
When we returned my friend announced
my dog hung himself by jumping over

the fence except that the leash holding him
confined wasn't long enough to let him
escape free.

I loved that dog to death.