Like a Dog (REV 4)

[tectak]

Done With Dogs is now: Like A Dog

Like a Dog

Unlike people,
dogs don’t have to suffer.
When they grow old and lame,  
so frail and broken, we can hold on,
talk slowly, weep softly,
as they’re put down.  

My sister wanted to die like a dog. Unfortunate connotations which on this side of the pond you would be surprised to hear is not a good thing...I guess that is why it is a huge cliche
I would have loved if she could have  
seen us smiling, heard our good-byes,
kept cancer from catching her A late fait accompli which should, I would have thought, be the primary wish.
all alone, drawing her down
its hideous hole. As a metaphor it works purely because of the descritive horror but it is not successful as a clarifying construct. In fact, the visualisation is extremely difficult...but so is the disease, so you may get away with it.

Unlike dogs,
people have to suffer. Hmmm. Not sure about the accuracy of this little "enjoinder". You see, dogs DO suffer...just not all dogs and not as long as people. Unlike some dogs? some people? Your poem

Hello Mark,
Well, it is a different piece...why not come clean? This has got a point and a purpose. I am not the best crit having just lost my dog to cancer in April (See "By my Hand" on this site. I cannot read it) but let us stick with the poetry.
Veracity verse...what to say? Well, I am not a fan of chopping up text into convenient lengths and calling it poetry. It seems to me to benefit neither camp.
S2, L2 ending on "have" seems to be purely to go with the cast-in-stone line lengths set up at the start to no real advantage. S2, L4 and L5 end in similar dire circumstance.
In any piece of random-everything-poetic it beats my why writers force themselves in to irregular holes. Of course, there is an overbearing sense that the message is greater than the mechanics but that is invariably the case. Good messages, though, deserve good mechanics...or why try to make a poem of it?
For this crit, then, a little more structure and you have it. I confess, and have done so often, that it is easier (and more fitting) to write sombre thoughts in longer lines. Short lines are staccatto and tend to jolt the fragile intent. Longer lines have a further advantage. You have more time (=distance) to manoeuvre your words in to sensible and sensitive order. For the linguine poets, this is an anathema, as it makes their offerings much shorter. I do not include you in this group but you are getting a little fettucini with this one.
I could
go
on but
I think you get
the
point.

Best,
tectak