My beloved husband is my most steadfast writing critic. He suggested yesterday’s post on the Brehon Laws and dog ordure was a bit heavy. Or at least heavier than my usual tone. So here is something a bit lighter. This piece, written by Anne Le Marquand Hartigan, is from a fabulous book of children’s poems by Irish poets, Something Beginning With P. Seems altogether appropriate in many ways.

Neighbourhood Watch
I know your dog is old and weary
for him his days grow slow and dreary
his legs are stiff, he stops and staggers

his tail now only limply waggers
his eyes, like mine have deepening baggers
but still he does his job for you – deposits

large and juicy poos.

Please, dear Neighbour, do me one favour
it is a point I fain would labour
those doggy shits I do no savour-

dear Neighbour do you care one bit
where your hound-dog does his shit?
Please look beside my garden railings

brown deposits, spied through pailings
squashy, dried or decomposing
other doggies sometimes nosing –

these relics – I do not enjoy. So
with a shovel please deploy
them to some other place –

I dare you sir to show your face
why should I have this disgrace –
full mess around my place?

How dare you, sir, let him totter
you can’t care one little jotter
that he poos inside my gate

where my poor foot, when I come late
on doggie excrement does shake –
would you like it on your plate

for breakfast?

Neighbor, I have had enough,
things are getting pretty tough
and so am I.

Halt, dear Neighbour, vengeance rises
I am thinking sweet surprises
dressed in horrid nasty guises

if you do not change your ways.

You will cry and howl for mercy
as my rage comes down to curse ye
my anger getting worse and worsie.

I’m heaping up a tidy pile
getting deeper all the while
I am savouring my bile –

accept this now – my final hit
as in your letter box I fit
about a ton of doggie shit.

Hmmm. As I read this over again perhaps those Brehon Laws were not so superfluous.