Retrieving Labrador Days, dog tales in prose and verse

RETRIEVING LABRADOR DAYS
dog tales in prose and verse

Stories about each of his three Labrador retrievers and some of the other dogs and people whose lives they touched.

By Anthony Buccino

Shaggy dogs, mutts, mongrels, three Labrador retrieves and a pet rabbit inspire the stories and poems in this collection. Pets of one kind or another have share the past six decades of the author's life, and here are some stories that will make you laugh out loud, and others that remind you of escapades and exasperation you've been through with your own pets. 

 Local Author Writes About Menagerie of Pets


More   On Kindle    NOOK

OLD MAN UP THE BLOCK

The old man up the street
died – but I don't know
how long ago or why

In fact, I never shook his hand
or learned his name - or about his
family except that he was alone

The last time I spoke with him
was about a year or so ago
about aluminum siding his house

After the summer and siding
I barely spied him around his home
or back at the Dunkin Donuts

He told me he liked dogs but frowned
- when he mentioned the neighbors -
to say he'd never have one here

The kids in their own way remembered
Him as the man who looked like
Good old President Reagan

The kids, they said he looked
Like Ronald Reagan – like the
President lived up the block

The old man up the street died
he lived in a house just like mine
but with aluminum siding now

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
From Retrieving Labrador Days - Dog tales in prose and verse
******************

SNOW DAY

In the old days, before the Internet
and all those useless cable TV channels,
after we’d cleared sidewalks and drive
and it looked like we’d be snowed in
for a while, or until the town plows
came rumbling past a time more or two
we’d walk down the hill, sliding & laughing
to Radcliffe Deli & buy a stack
of magazines & food treats – and milk, too,

to help us endure our cabin fever.
Sometimes we’d take the dog there
and tie her leash to the fire plug – or
a drainpipe or something secure.
The walk home in the fresh fallen snow
uphill on fresh-plowed streets – man,
that was Christmas-card perfect.

- By Anthony Buccino
From Retrieving Labrador Days
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
******************

WHO'S A BUM

Our dog Butch got super strong by dragging around
an anchor chain bolted to his all-weather doghouse.
Dad started out with one chain
and Butch snapped them by running full hilt
until his neck or the chain snapped.
Or he twisted the chain until it curled up in knots
and he couldn’t move.
As he snapped them, Dad sought heavier
and heavier chains until he got the anchor chain.

Butch would pace at the end of his long, heavy chain
like a lion in a Roman circus, or dig a hole in the dirt.
Even with that heavy chain on his collar,
he’d still jump from the ground up
on the pitched roof of his house,
whether you were there
or not to pet him or rub his nose,
so he could see the gas-man coming
and warn us until the danger cleared.

He was a watch dog, we’ll give you that.
And fearless, too, I’d say.
And when you walked past the end
of his chain’s reach he’d stretch out all he could
until his head was in the air
and he stood on his hind legs
pawing the air so you’d come nearer.
When you did, he’d lick your hand,
your face, and love you up.
The girls called him slobberpus.
When Butch leapt on Dad,
Pa pounded a few love taps
in his thick brown fur on his hairy jowls.
“Who’s a bum? Who’s a bum?”
He asked in all his kindness,
boxing mid-air paws balancing
with the dog that just wanted
a little love and attention.

- By Anthony Buccino
From Retrieving Labrador Days
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

LAST DOG

For Zamboni

You benefited from dogs before,
dogs tied on a chain and staked
Dogs penned in cold plywood houses,
dogs that dug into cool pools of rain water.
With each passing dog came an improvement
from the yard stake to the first floor
to the doghouse and the heavy chain
to a nap in front of the fireplace
to a penned-in doghouse
raised off the cold ground
and overflowing fresh straw inside,
for sleeping behind,
a burlap bag door.
From a shared pen
to the basement crates side by side.

All to you, the last dog who sleeps on a $200 orthopedic cushion
Intercepting concrete cold chilled by an underground spring.
You, the last dog,
who whimpers when left outside alone,
Who nudges again and again
for a long-nailed belly rub.
You, the last dog,
who takes the kid’s dirty laundry
And cuddles it like a pillow.
You, who never learned
to take a biscuit in a gentle way
Or come when called
if there’s a better deal elsewhere.
And I won’t go into the things you ate after a scolded “NO!”
And the way you returned that contraband.
Oh, you remember, don’t you, the slime ball in your crate that day,
It had us wondering which end it came from and what it was,
Until some prodding proved it to be a sock you ate
From a stranger’s shoe left on the soccer field one night.

You are the last dog for this old man.
The mornings are dark and cold in winter
And the summer nights
full of stinging mosquitoes.
That, six, is the magic number,
that, after you,
Last dog, there shall be
no seven, no other dog.

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty

Also appears in Retrieving Labrador Days - Dog tales in prose and verse

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
******************

BOOTH PARK CAROMS

Behind the bakery,
the former Texaco station
down the wall in the Third River
the ducks await castoff cakes
The geese, and seagulls too,
show up for their dough,
then all,
merrily, merrily, merrily
swim upstream.

Third River runs
through Booth Park
right down the middle,
breaking up
upper Booth Park
from lower Booth Park,
breaking up the wide field
for baseball and soccer
and some sledding, too,
on the high side,
of the Yantacaw Creek
running through
from the lower playground
where once upon
a summer day long, long ago
my cousins and I played caroms
like Minnesota Fats
and Paul Newman’s Hustler.
And there in Booth Park
in 1964 my puppy,
a mongrel mutt named Butch,
lost out the ‘smallest dog contest’
to the Nutley kid,
a favorite and a regular, too.
My cousins cried out, “FIX!” but
my dog and I just went home
across the river that runs through
Booth Park and up the hill
to good old Gless Avenue
in Belleville.

- By Anthony Buccino
From Retrieving Labrador Days

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty
also appears in Yountakah Country - a poetic view of Nutley old and new
Copyright © 2009-2013 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Book covers

Most of the poems on this site have been collected in one or more of the following books.

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.