When Dogs Die

Syllable Poem in text and on video

When a dog dies,

does its ghost haunt its grave — if it has one?

Grave, that is.

A place where it's laid down to rest.

To be a ghost,

you must at first have had a soul.

So, I guess what I ask is:

Do dogs have a soul?

They do if people do.

So do pigs, and birds, and ants,

and bugs so small they can't be seen.

And what of plants?

Each nut, each seed, is life.

An egg. A germ.

All things that live have got a soul — or none.

Soul is life, life is soul.

Two words for the same thing.

But ghost?

Do souls stay, when life has gone,

and there's but a corpse that moves no more?

Flesh that rots,

bones that crack and turn to dust.

Where does life go,

when flesh turns to soil?

If what makes us move

is not the same as that which moves,

then life doesn't stop when legs do.

The soul moves on.

I tell you:

The ghosts of dead dogs bark at their graves.

If you try hard,

if you be still,

and make no noise of your own,

you can hear it.

My "Syllable Poems" are written exclusively with one-syllable words, which is not that hard in the English language. All the words of fundamental importance to a poet have just one syllable.

Here's my Youtube video art channel, if you prefer going there to see this and other poems as video recitals:

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All My Poems

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Ever Young — vampire novel

Sunday Brunch with the World Maker

All's End science-fiction

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Stefan Stenudd

About me
I'm a Swedish author of fiction and non-fiction books in both English and Swedish. I'm also an artist, a historian of ideas, and a 7 dan Aikikai Shihan aikido instructor. Click the header to read my full bio.