In the night

mare

                of the dark

                                    Auden’s

dogs

               spark

                             le and

throb                     hoot

                                                owls

                                                blink

                                                            solemn

ly

       
       toward a park

                               lamp

                                           flame

                                           on the cross

walk

           blends with sparks from thorn

           bush/Au

                            den’s

                                                dogs

stand silent

                                                  in the brush, aston

                                                 ished by their dark night

mare

                      (when will they unleash their terror?)

slack-eyed

                      in pouchy

                                        bunches, their nos

                      trils

                      pene

                                 trate

                                             veryheart

of the deep wood

                                ed chasm where all manner of creatures

lurk and fuss—skunk

and lizard, snake, snail, owl and wasp—

ears

          perked

                        for

                                ter

                                         ror

                                                  lips

                                                         a

                                                                grin:

  these are the dogs of Europe in a strange

unnatural land, scarce of

                                        gargoyles and medieval

clocks

               vast, unknow

                                        able, indecipherable, un

prepared

                  for terror, multi

tudinous

                  dune and mountain, can

yons a

               stir

                         in bedrock

                                             deep dark

                        towers of Night

                        underground

fissures

                        splay

                                      ing sub

terrranean chambers—As

tonished, Amazed

Auden’s dogs

circle the thorn

bush

                like wolf-

                hyena hybrids, faces

                tinged

with cross

                     walk lamp, saliva-

lipped            caves

                                   dance

in chimera

                     stalac

                                  tites

dragon-tailed, mothra-

headed, nebulae

maze in a jumble of nightsky, fall

to high

              plateau          savage

ponderous jaws,

                             alp-flecked,

                                                  hinge in

the nightmare of the

                                  dark, locked

in their own

                                  terror.