Doggerel

A bear is a bear and a dog is a dog

but what do you say when you put in a log

that your Bear is a dog and your dog is a Bear?

And another's called Cougar and sits in a chair?

(This dissertation is going nowhere)

 

Bear is long-haired, woolly and white the cats took off in a terrible fright

but now that they realise he won't bite they sleep near his side

by day and by night each one imagines he's theirs by right.

 

"Oh" (says Bear), "I don't care but I wish they'd go.

I really don't like to be crowded so.

I really ought to be living in snow. Let's go there now let's go,

let's go from the temperature high to where it's low

anywhere, anywhere, I don't know I should be the dog of an Eskimo".

 

Two other dogs adorn this place lean and graceful and long in the face

they bound and jump and love to race poor old Bear can only chase

when they decide to set the pace.

 

"Oh" (says Bear), "I don't care but I must be fair –

I can't compare in this affair –

but with heart to spare and plenty of soul –

within this lair I have a role

(apart from cleaning my feeding bowl)".

 

Bear sits here, lies there, Bear's hair is everywhere –

on every table, every chair it floats upon water, it flies in the air

"Oh" says Bear, "I don't care,

(it must be nice to fly in the air!)

but in the window at Gleebooks fair

I clearly witnessed upon the rack there a book on How to Knit with Doghair

So though you may wonder, perhaps even scoff

my owner will look like a wonderful toff

dressed in the fur of a woolly old Bear

she'll go to the opera - she'll go anywhere!"

 

(Rosemary Raiche)