Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/ poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Pontius Pilate and His Dog
When a man’s worked all day in signing off On having any number of his fellow men Imprisoned, flogged, branded, imprisoned, or chained He’s happy to come home to his good ol’ dog
The master whistles, his happy dog barks Man and beast in happy concord meet Playfully tussling in their mutual love While the servants cringe and cower in fear
What difference if a man executes his brother As long as he and his dog have each other?
The curious idea of Pontius Pilate having a dog to love is in Bulgakov’s *The Master and Margarita*, p. 311 in the Penguin edition. The paragraph is almost as touching as Senator Vest’s courtroom speech, “Tribute to the Dog.”