"Schoolboys with Dog, Winter"
It’s dark when they scuff off to school.
It’s good to trample the thin panes of casual
ice along the track where twice a week
a freight that used to stop here lugs grain
and radiator hoses past us to a larger town.
It’s good to cloud the paling mirror
of the dawn sky with your mouthwashed breath,
and to trash and stamp against the way
you’ve been overdressed and pudged
into your down jacket like a pastel
sausage, and to be cruel to the cringing
dog and then to thump it and hug it and croon
to it nicknames. At last the pale sun rolls
over the horizon. And look!
The frosted windows of the schoolhouse gleam.
—William Matthews
Sounds cold.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks that the boys are kind of mean to the dog, but that's dogs and kids.
The sun rolls, like a ball, something th dog and boys would play with. And the windows gleam. All seems well in the small town
I never really enjoy this literal type of poetry. It is imagery, but there isn't much more to it, it seems. You see the boys and town and feel the walking to school and yes, the cold, and the boundaries of child learning animals, but I want more. I want to know what they were thinking, what the dog was thinking and who was watching. I want inside the poem.
ReplyDeleteMy first rule of poetry is there are no rules, but yeah. This poem seems boring
ReplyDelete