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"The Black Dog"
by Jan Sand
2008-08-17 10:45:15

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This straight street
Called Kingston Avenue,
Black asphalt at the center,
Curbed, where people strew
The wreckage of technology,
Meals half consumed, in foil,
Cardboard boxes, black bagged mysteries,
Fruit and crusts left to spoil,
Old furniture, a broken toy or two,
Is where I walk from work
Back to my subway stop.
Here, where strange odors lurk,
Smells of pizza, acrid smoke and shit
Mingle with concussions out of stylish noise
Shamming music, fashioned to split
Sense from sensibility,
I met the large black dog,
Seemingly unowned and free.
A retriever. I smiled and said hello.
Seated, mouth agape, he smiled back at me.
I stopped and stroked his head.
He responded with civility
And took halting steps to follow.
I have no space in my life
For a dog. He detected my friendliness
Was well intentioned but hollow.
A large sore, unattended, festered in his side.
He stopped, sat, watched me go.
I felt guilty, frustrated,
Helpless as God at Sarajevo.

Poetry

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bohdan	2008-08-17 18:20:10
Interesting. Was God truly helpless or did he appoint you as the dog's savior --- and all of us for Sarajevo. Either way, we will always seek refuge from guilt. And we will always remain God's nightmare as a result.


Sand	2008-08-17 19:52:36
I have no doubts that you are God's nightmare. And for many other's also.


bohdan	2008-08-17 20:26:37
No doubt --- an interesting reply to my comment.


Sand	2008-08-17 20:43:14
My sincere apologies. I am so used to Paparella shoving knives into me at the slightest initiative I assumed it was he who commented and the comment was intended for him. Mark it down to old age and unfortunate automatic reaction. Nevertheless, the very real incident rubbed my nose in the obvious fact that I am no one's savior.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-08-18 01:24:14
Those comments confirm, if indeed we needed a confirmation, that it's all ad hominem subjective and biased reactions for Mr. S. having precious little to do with regard and respect for the objective truth.


bohdan	2008-08-18 07:08:30
A graceful apology. And yes, we all might wish we could save the world. Unfortunately our hearts don't always find the strength to push our courage to its wisdom, thus forcing us to a somewhat dishonorable retreat with guilt. We all have such memories. What a shame.


Sand	2008-08-18 07:14:29
In summation of this extensive discourse it is obvious that my interaction with P. has generated an unfortunate internal mechanism to automatically react to negative comment in a forceful way and frequently it includes unwarranted assumptions such as the previous one that P. is the only one to comment. One of the reasons for my participation at this site was the hope of interpersonal interaction and in this the only frequent responder has been P. whose mind is an intellectual desert thickly interspersed with intellectual sharp stones of no sensible content. I have investigated this totally limited moron sufficiently to completely realize there is no value whatsoever in his mind and other comments on my submissions have been too sparse to make them worth the effort. So I will leave it at that. Assaulting a mental cripple, at end, becomes merely pointless sadism and I have better and kinder things to do with my limited time on Earth.


bohdan	2008-08-18 07:49:42
Oh well...


Emanuel Paparella	2008-08-18 07:56:44
Point confirmed! The Marquis De Sade must be turning in his grave, but it was him after all who taught intellectual bullies to turn the table around and declare themselves the poor helpless victims. In the process they end up making complete asses of themselves and indeed revealing their true color, despite their protestations. True for form S. has repeatedly declared that he has something more useful to do than to respond to someone that is so far below him intellectually (all "enlightened" politically correct idealogues stand on pedistals) but obviously he cannot help himself, which leads one to suspect that it all about projection of one's shadow. I doubt he will keep his word this time around either. An intellectual bully has to have the last word; it's like an addiction.


Sand	2008-08-18 07:59:39
And is this the last word?


Emanuel Paparella	2008-08-18 08:34:58
Indeed, Mr. Bohdan, to begin to gather the courage that leads to wisdom one has to first acknowledge one's guilt. I am afraid that in a deterministic world sin and guilt have simply been erased. Here is another poem about another black dog: The Black Dog by Elmer Omar Pizo Beloved Frank de Limas, Willy ks, everytime you meet me on the narrow streets of Waipahu or Ewa or Kalihi, in wedding celebrations or birthday parties, in the mortuaries or pharmacies, in the supermarkets or churches, even in the schools or cinema houses, you never fail to ask me about that black dog. There's not a need to defend ourselves. It's impractical, it's useless! Yet, I, a typical pinoy dog eater, considered the most shameful remnant of this human race, still need to set this black dog thing in a more relevant perspective. The smell of dog adobo floating lightly through your aquiline noses is way, way different from the real feeling, from the real thing. May it be tame or wild dog, May it be trained or neglected dog, May it be smart or idiot dog, May it be rice-fed or chow-fed dog, May it be pure-bred or native dog, May it be yellow or brown dog, When you roast them, their skin always turns black anyway.


Sand	2008-08-20 16:41:35
One of the most basic and nastiest traps that religion in general, and particularly Christianity, lays for the unaware is the laying on of guilt for some imaginary mythical historical occurrence. It is fantastically useful for the religious establishment to make its adherents feel permanently guilty as this enslaves them in all sorts of ways useful to the hierarchy. It must be understood that this guilt does not require that the adherent must have actually committed any violation of religious code. It is sufficient that some ancestor (or the ultimate Christian ancestor, Adam) did something to offend the Creator and thereby morally permanently poisoned the entire human species, somewhat equivalent to distorting human DNA into a configuration of guilt that can be passed on from parents to children in a horror to eternity. Looked at analytically, according to the story, God did a bad job of creation in making a creature that did not perform as expected and therefore the creature and all its successors must be punished for a structural error. If nothing else, it seems God is a lousy engineer. But the structure of social guilt is not merely useful to religion where it forms one element of controlling people. It is akin to a drug company devising an alleviating drug for a chronic disease it has devised and perpetrated on the public. That way it cannot only profit handsomely from selling the drug but also acquires moral stature for acting to relieve horrible symptoms. This is a ploy of armament manufacturers, insurance companies, financial systems involved with credit cards and, of course, loan sharks operating out of the Mafia who do not shoot off your knee caps as long as you regularly pay them exorbitant sums. Religion was on to the game very early on and it has done very well with it. An interesting article on the subject can be found at http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blxtn_passion_niet.htm