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Carolyn J Reilly Jan 2012
It is not me
I am not bad
These misconceptions
Make me mad

The media frenzy
Blame the breed
The Staffy curse
Is sad to read

They don’t report
The positive things
The love we give
The joy we bring

We might be strong
And made of muscles
But we love our hugs
And playful tussles

We are devoted
With massive hearts
We run away form
Our smelly farts

If you know
A Staffy well
You’ll understand
My need to tell

We are not monsters
We are not evil
We are not savage
Or dogs of the devil

We are quite simply
Man’s best friend
Loyal and true
Right till the end
René Mutumé Mar 2014
I smoked. There was a good hand in the sky. It looked like a peach draped over tatty buildings. Hemisphere broken open at the end of a fist, and then at the end of an arrow shattering the pieces of night surrounding it, as the moon clouds shot, devouring it.

I flicked my cigarette down on the floor of the fly over instead of flicking it into the avalanche of cars below. Who knows what something as miniscule as a flying tab **** might make a person think. It would not be a fly. It would be a tab ****. It would be something that distracted a driver on the motorway, which they traced back to my finger flicking it.

It would be rude and imprecise, a car loses control and then flips over for a second, then paints the carriageway with ten multiples of itself flying and screaming. The driver flys inside the car. And I continued to cross the fly over. Outside the bookies at 10pm there is a dog looking up at me, his head tilts like he is asking me something, as he starts to follow me, leash dragging.

"Oi! Oi! Where the **** are you going?" A mouth from the ****** says, "Oh me, just down here." I reply, "I was talkin to the ******* dog you ******* mug." The gentleman added. The small white staffy was still looking up at me. Well, one of us is going to have to answer him, his tail said. "Oh ******* then." The mouth says changing back again into the building. "I guess we're going down there then." Schrödinger says, or 'Schrö', as he allows me to call him.

I light another cigarette as more arrows are fired from the sky, more like wet arrows now. "Well you'll need to pick up my leash mate; I don't want to look like a ******." Shrö says, "Ah sorry dude," I say picking it up as we continue to walk.

"Most of the people who talk to me are a little mad." The small staffy says. But why am I called Schrödinger? The staffy asks me. Ah come on, you don't get it? Well I do apologise but I am not that sharp on my quantum theory philosophy, and I am also a dog. Oh yes, I concede to him in my flat.  "Do you mind opening the door to your balcony pilgrim?" He asks me next.

"Sorry sir?" I ask him, "Well it either goes on your floor or I do it outside." He says. I open the door as he asks, and then lean against the frame as he takes a ****, and I watch him. He scrapes his hind legs on the concrete as if forgetting that it is concrete and not soil. You remind me a lot of love, I mention to him, smoking.

“You know what pilgrim? I think I prefer the name Otto Gross.” The staffy says looking up at the mixing night and I hatch open a new can pouring some into his bowl on the balcony. Cheers love. He says. He puts his two front paws on the meter high wall where my balcony overlooks a junk yard, and begins to speak.

“There is my lover! As screamed across sense and filled with conjoined gait, of my eye and hand, I am jealous of the city she walks in, by me, as I am half departed, myself, near a fox that gathers in ball, by me and is a better *****, than me, here, so I learn, from vermin, how to hide, how to fight, and how to re-appear. How to have humour, like theirs, and there unplanned joy-“

Woah “*******”, I’m spewing, a poet dog! A pile of dosh in the equilibrium! I rush back into my flat and grab a pencil and paper, shake a bit, take a sip, keep on listening, then nearly fall **** forwards returning to the balcony scribbling. And there’s a ****** dog talking.

“I trit-trot across roads with my last owner, winning jobs only within tasks of cemetery light, inside and on, the wall; so curled so, as I sleep outside, so sojourned within, grey dusk, car rivers- I spit! Not so far as giants can, just a piece of spittle, just shadow puppets dancing, just marionettes laughing-”
Schrödinger sang on my balcony beginning to howl, making the lid of the box open.

“To ******* the rain. To share within it, its fire, its knowable drench, of skin like hymn, that is so far penetrating, and mingled past flesh, opened and quakeless to the onslaught of lightening swans! The quickening fury, of several slow days, and lives, devouring the metronome of salutes, upon heart buildings coming down like tetrahedrons drawn by many hands, of dusk filth opening to the arrays of data goods and gods, and produced from the pockets of gibbous mooned skies, and I whisper to the tsunami: mood unhung, bellowing away from the dog fights, and unpainted streets, I seem: To be praying...”

Monday may come soon I doubted, watching the staffy speak.

“Planets growing teeth, in the stars and the junk-yarded iris, succour comes, and so do the sad journeying flies, flying in the mouth of many gales, as extremities to the planet’s engine, affordable, losses, condensed in- and danced solarlessly -in, dances of mortuary, and wedding sung precipice, the edge of a gale, happy to blow my face, away, just gust gust gust! And yes. I do pray a little, and past holocaust of saccharine tune, our shame is forgotten in the simple, rhythms, of a cup- a hand, a castle flock of gulls, landing in water.”

A dog wags its tail because it has just shat, his owner gone, bag ready below ****, I feel streets clean with loving owners hostile to the madness, of the furious dozen dozen flies- lobotomised drool, ready and alive enough, to laugh, and if you are knifeless, maybe a lil knackered, from work - - we might haul up: eternity, my love, and have a lil more, humour! In our sheets and face and sky, an take a **** holiday, right where you are stood or sat, walking, or resting.

And there are no gods, but the ones that let you see them creasing their soft cheeks and aging beside you, together, letting time die, parapets soak in the weather, and say: ‘hey’, here are my bones, there has been a lot of twisting done, but all they need, is yours.
Toned, muscular, powerful beasts.
This is the way the world chooses to see.
Outraged, aggression, and dangerous too.
Scared one day, they might bite you.
Not even a second, by the looks, instant fear.
This so called 'reputation' makes us tear.

Continue to breed,
Continue to Buy.
Opt. to put them on a chain so tight.
Opt. to make them fight.
Judging them, at just first sight.
Not bad dogs, just bad owners.
When will the world see the light?

Toned, masculine, powerful features.
Beautiful and intelligent creatures.
Ever so loving, ever so loyal.
So goofy, and eager to please.
Eager to love, Eager for affection.
This is the way the world should see.

A family dog, a protector.
A comedian in ways.
A runway model with natural beauty.
A visitor, for those in pain and lonely.
A caregiver for rehabilitation.
A simple, lasting smile,
A kind that sparks and stays for awhile.
A partner against crime.
A team mate whose there all the time.

A worker, a player to love you at best.
A companion beyond special.
A dog, beyond the rest.
A love, in life, with whatever is next.
A best friend, to say the least.
A Staffies not A beast.
Staffies are the best.
Michelle Quick Nov 2010
He struts through the street
With an arrogant stride
A staffy at his feet
Fills him with pride
Baseball cap on his head
Peak points in the air
Yea blood I'm hard
And I don't seem to care
Trackies and hoodies
Are the code of his dress
Big golden chains
Hang low on his chest
Sock's pulled up high
Above his designer boots
I'm a council house chav
So proud of me roots
I'm hard and I know it
And I'll rob ya of bread
Don't mess with me
Or you'll end up dead
His attitude stinks
Filth falls from his gob
With a chip on his shoulder
He don't want a job
But under the bravado
He's as quiet as a mouse
Living his life
From his council house
His mum is on drugs
His dad is long gone
No wonder this bloke
Turned out to be wrong
So show him some kindness
Just a friendly word
Might just be the the thing
That stops him doing bird
I somehow much doubt it
But its worth a try
Cause deep underneath
He's a friendly guy
Michelle Quick copyright 2010
I wanted to write a poem
about the incessant discomfort
I always feel in my left eye
whenever my contact lenses
become old and dry
I thought about how it tickles
but scratches at the same time
and starts off alright
just a minor annoyance
but quickly, overtime
becomes almost unbearable
like my pre-school bully himself
is folding down one of my eyelashes
just enough for it to poke me
at the slightest movement
then I thought about how
I'd sooner write a poem about my life
and how it started out equally alright
and quickly, overtime became almost unbearable
as if my pre-school bully didn't do it right

so I found him in his adult life many years later
wife, two kids and a mortgage
yappy staffy-cross, two cars
and an alright job as a graphic designer
his garden full of gorgeous flowerbeds,
a full head of hair and a fading right hook
"MAKE ME FEEL **** LIKE YOU DID THEN."
a puzzled look on his face,
garden hose flooding his drive and the yappy
staffy-cross still yapping away
at the living room window
"I'M DEAD SERIOUS ANDREW,
NOTHING HURTS LIKE IT USED TO."
so he called the police
and I never got to feel young again
unless you count scurrying away from
a council estate under the threat of
a poor meal at Parkside police station
the rekindling of my youth

so this is my infomercial poem
about how not to confront someone
always be fully clothed
that's very important
avoid being drunk
any mind altering substance
is best avoided in my opinion
remember just because you care
just because you remember
does not mean anyone else does
oh and
don't eyeball craft beer when
you still have your contacts in
you know what?
-just don't eyeball craft beer
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
something beautiful happened to me,
more beautiful than a Mona Lisa,
a Staffordshire terrier (funny how you
say b'ah b'ah sheer, or you do say shire - shy ire,
but the former is a gluttonous tongue
expression) ran up to me barking
and tail waggling from ~200 metres away,
i asked the breed but not the petting
i just called him a nice fella the owner called
him a dragging-of-the-leg ******...
what a bulging scull, firm throughout,
strong limbs, hidden ribs, a proper meat-head
of a dog, quick to please,
i turned into a butcher in an instant,
that's what i mean, a moment like that,
you go walk in the Essex fields and you
meet strangers with welcoming dogs,
former convicts judging by the tattoos...
when a dog forgets its owner and rushes up to a stranger
instant magic,  barking, tail waggling, head readied
for a patting... moments like these are better than
a striptease; i was a bit furry in feeling throughout,
come to mind - it's funny, isn't it?
how a man will readily magnetise his feelings
into animals when he's experienced unsatisfactory femininity,
that sexualised belittling "motherhood",
some men can take it, others can't,
to be frank mothers are less relentless in what a man
should be... women bully men into
acting as tools for provisions, who the **** thought
of excavating harems from lions or sea-lions
was a genius... imagine exporting the 11-year itch
to Iraq... i mean, the only success story of western
society is ******* everyone over, given
that ~50% of marriages in the western world fail
after 11 years... the curse of individuation,
morphed into a pet chihuahua in a purse of some
glamour model, the Chinese are laughing, believe me,
even in their factories, numbering over a billion,
and in the west? the success of science, prolonged
old-age... and the care homes... hip hip hooray!
******* marvellous, sleeping in my own ****...
Jimi Hendrix got lucky, god loved him...
is old-age really a success story? i mean, does it really,
*******, matter? what sort of achievement is it?
a life a century a hoopla of the next brigade
of hip replacement surgery? i guess only turtles get to
live over the century mark, trying to sabotage this
ontological fact is suicide or, well... sadism...
i rather live to my necessary expectancy
than outlive it in one;
but what a beautiful scene, he spotted me from
~200 metres away, and i got to pet him while
he barked joyfully, that thick-skull head of his,
a fine fella that staffy - i never knew that a dog
could give you more pleasure than a woman;
well i do now, having petted those autistic animals
known as cats.
Nyx Sep 2018
The bushland calls
Of my childhood dreams
Amongst the wild
My soul it, sings

The gentle breeze
light upon the skin
Sun upon my face
it welcomes me in

To the lands of summers
Though now long gone

Memories of the heats haze
With a white juvenile horse
Within a closed off field it lay
But young and free it was born

Birds flying high above
Shielding the rays of the sky
Perfectly clear a crystal bright blue
Not a single cloud in sight

Fields filled with nothing
But the dirt beneath our feet
Dull patches of green and yellow
Amongst cattle it feeds

A rooster it crows loud
The chooks begin to run
As bruce, a little staffy
Chases them about

Work shed full of tools
Covered by a rusted tin roof
Parked beside it old barrols
And a broken down ute

Stone walls of the house
To keep it cool inside
Spread across the cold floors
A reddish brown cowhide

Worn down leather couch
Out upon the front porch
An eski filled with stubbies
Where the boys had their "talks"

I feel the memories flooding back
This peacefulness, this sense of home
Hours pass by within seconds
Losing myself in the zone

My footsteps have long faded with time
As has my name once carved upon the gumtrees
The white stallion no longer grazes near by
Nor do the same cattle dwell in that field

Worn down by time and way of the land
Though I do intend to return again
To share the beauty of this place
Drawn back by the old fate

The day melts away like the snow
And I hear my parent calling my name
This place will forever be my second home
Because I know here, I'll never be alone
Barmah
The only place I can feel truly free
Under the hot glaze of the sun
Dedea Nov 2017
I’ve always been quite lonely, never been a ‘people person’,
Quite comfy in my own self pity, with my wall up, imprisoned.
Always had a chip, and hole for good measure,
Never been happy so only God knew pleasure.
But there was this one man, who took me under his wing,
Looked deep into my heart and knew he could do something.
You see, he offered a gift, a tiny little staffy pup,
He said I should care for her, and with her share my love.
And so I took her from him and stared deep into her eyes
Right then I named her Zena, and a bond was hers and mine.
She has never left my side and will not do so by choice
Not only does she listen but I’m sure I hear her voice.
A voice which helps me focus, this here is a new beginning.
Now, at last, I  have another reason for living
It seems she gives me reason,  to be grown up and safe.
To be more responsible and to pay rent for my place.
To get up each morning and take her for a run,
To make sure we have shopping in and always have fun.
I make sure she is disciplined, clean and well behaved.
That’s a mum all in itself , from that I was depraved.
I suffer with bipolar and this she seems to know,
She licks the healing wounds and nuzzles me with her nose.
She licks the tears from my face, and she lays across my lap.
Shows me her belly hoping for a good scratch,
She knows this makes me smile, the cheekiness the catch.
She is a big girl 5 stone to be exact.
Harmless yet loyal, though only fools would test that fact!
She is beautiful and powerful and I’m honoured to be her mum,
I owe more than my life to my princess, for what she’s helped me become.
I was at rock bottom, on the verge of suicide
And then along came Zena, who simply looked into my eyes.

Dedea
27th April 17

— The End —