ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

IT'S A DOG'S LIFE


I've a bed that's a piece of old rug
with some fleas and that collar I hate.
But I manage to keep dry and snug
curled up on that piece of old rug.
And, you know, I can feel pretty smug
'cause no cost and no cares complicate
the quiet life of the dog-house and rug;
it's the fleas and the collar I hate.

Now I’m Confused.

Neville I guess this has some complex explanation, if you explain I will try and keep up.

TTFN

Woof, woof

I get that; sort of a Pat Pat pattern

Who who who whoooo let the dogs out? Interesting bit of pat-ter you've got going here Neville . Perhaps you might like to sit and stay, and have a bit of a chin wag with us and tell us more about it. Is it doggerel perhaps??? Or maybe loosely based on Pat-erson?

I read it to my girls because they are the finest critics when it comes to dog eared poetry and they felt rather sad for the little or maybe somewhat large pooch who wrote this piece and asked me to forward this on




You need to come here – we have beds,
with blankets of wool not old rugs.
We’ve collars with real diamantes
and definitely no fleas or bed bugs.
We’re always kept warm and well fed
and both live a life of great ease
though some might say we’re mongrel bred
we’ve a spare kennel here – you won’t freeze.

Cheers

MME

G'day Dave. If the dog could talk, I wonder what he would say ?

It's not complex. My little thing is rhymed and metered..tick for that.
The metre ( for us eggheads ) is anapestic trimeter, a simple scheme used in bush poetry.
ditty-dum,ditty-dum,ditty-dum.
The poem is a closed form called a triolet. You set yourself the problem of saying your piece in eight lines in a rhyming pattern of
A
B
a
A
a
b
A
B
the capital letters are repeated lines. You can repeat those lines exactly or change them slightly. In my case I have changed line A almost entirely in line 7. The rules are not engraved in steel, a bit of tweaking is no crime.
and I have used a bit of alliteration line 6 to bring out the idea of complication.

Apart from that there is the problem of whether it is just about a dog or whether it refers to something else as well???

Come to think of it Dave, you're right. It is complex.

Loved your little poem Maureen. I miss my old pooch still, but I won't get another because the pain of losing her was too much to bear again. I'm an old softy

Thank you Neville
It did put me in mind of one that Peely posted one time that was a triolet (I could not think of the name)
I totally get the reference to something else, the piece of old rug; once someone’s pride and joy a much-loved rug that was once rolled on, snuggled up in, a cherished comforter. Now discarded and in the bottom of a flea bitten dog box. Oh woe is me.


TTFN