The fifth poem was written by my dog, a border collie, for her Instagram page (@calliebordeaux). It reflects on her need every now and then to take a timeout from her constant desire to be on the go. For some strange reason, it seems best suited to being read in what approximates a SW of England accent.
Dog Tired, by Callie Bordeaux
I’m a working breed,
– A collie pup –
But, when time permits,
Sometimes I just sits and thinks
And sometimes I just sits.
Then there comes a time
In every day
When I runs out of steam,
So that’s when I reclines to doze
And settles down to dream.
I lies me down
And rests my chin
And I lets my spirit wander.
I thinks about imponderables
‘Pon some of which I ponder.
But ‘ventually
The sandman calls
And I falls fast asleep,
‘Cos mine is such a tiring life
With me always counting sheep!
Postscript: We had originally intended to name our puppy Bordeaux Callie as a play on the words Border Collie, but first we Googled it to make sure there was no conflation with, for example, the name of a French courtesan. There wasn’t, but we did find that ‘Callie Bordeaux’ was the name of a character played by Lindsay Wagner in a 1981 made-for-TV movie, Callie and Son. As Callie Bordeaux slips off the tongue more easily than Bordeaux Callie, and cannot be imagined as belonging to the oldest profession, we switched her name to the former.