how Stanley howls
and growls
with a vexing mix of vocal vowels
and frowns, and scowls
till your patience is broken and your sympathy aroused
and you ask him what all the fuss is for
and you go over there and muss his fur
and he rolls on his back like a fuss connoisseur
all four paws in the air
and you despair
and with one last ruffle you leave him there
and he sneezes and stares
and watches you sit back down in your chair
waits a couple of minutes and then
the whole damned performance starts over again

I made a new Stanley from the recycling
basically just experimenting
with everything and anything

his head was a cracked plastic funnel
a baked bean can for a muzzle
his ears a pair of raggedy flannels

for his eyes I used two diet coke tops
his legs were four old floor mops
his claws quartered rubber door stops

his body was a novelty cushion
wires to work every facial expression
a bark from a bootleg jazz session

it turned out better than I anticipated
I hoped he might’ve celebrated
but Stanley growled at the creature I’d created

and Lo! Stanley didst come unto me
his true being revealed miraculously
howling and growling and glowing spectacularly
and lo! I saw we had called him a lummox inaccurately
as he floated about the place most happily
but our ignorance he didst forgive magnanimously
fortunately

Be not afeard; the lurcher is full of noises,
a hundred twangling voices
that sound as if they should mean something
but do not
or if they did the dog hath long forgot
as he wakes with a sneeze and a start
and a mournful howl that would break’st thy heart
and rolls about the rug a lot
and his floppy ears begin to swot
with shaggy, importunate paws
and oft time roars
when those grievous and galumphing claws
wrought more damage than he witteth
whereupon he forthwith doth quitteth
to lie in attitudes of bleak despair
in a forlorn heap at the top of the stairs
and moans, and sighs
and everyone’s patience tries
and makes them curse that moment when
they adopted a lurcher from the rescue pen
as he dreams o’ the walk he had last weekend
and wakes, and cries to dream again