Dogsday - Augie March

Lately the smoke from the burning bushes

Has the eye and the mouth tasting ashes

For the price we’ve the haze of Olympus

Ambling by the Children’s Farm

Imitating the river’s calm

Liberated, the heart, from alarm

On this dog’s day

While it lasted the morning long

Came the feeling of something wrong

As you knew that it would before long

A grave expectation

So the hackles did raise some

O it never stays under even on

A dog’s day

You start looking for targets for your arrows

A bloody sheath for your eager blade

Dark clouds for the sun to shroud

On this dog’s day

Hills become mountains, sheer cliffs beside

Fickle elation meekly turns its tail, digs a hole and dies

The shrill cries of battle from gamboling spawn

Terriers come at a clip across the lawn

The mothers' competitions, the fathers' stifled yawns

In this hazy picnic season, light beer and gentle treason

Why would it give rise to an anger?

Could this city outdo its own languor

While tumbling bodies of children figure

As targets for your arrows

Little marks for your seasoned eye

Such a violence underlying this dog’s day

Why don’t you dispense with your secrets

Give your rambling blood a rest

Let the world be kind to you on this dog’s day