Poetry Week: Year 4 Rehearsal

Today we have been preparing for the Poetry Week Recital which will take place on Friday. Our poem is one by Carol Ann Duffy, about a boy who wants a dog... but it doesn't quite turn out how he expected!

Begged

He begged for a dog
with four fur paws,
with a bark and a wag
and a wet nose,
with a collar and lead and a drinking-bowl,
with a full-moon howl;
he begged, begged,
begged for a hound
with a cocked-leg and a grin and a growl,
with a basket, a blanket, a bone,
with a feeding-dish
and tricks with a ball,
a dog that would fetch and sit and heel.

He got his wish,
awoke in the black and barking dark –
the moon like a fang
in the mouth of night –
and, terrified, turned on the light:
smile of a wolf,
yeti’s paws at his neck,
yard of tongue, pink, wet,
butcher’s breath.
He felt like death,
he felt sick,
then he felt the first fierce frantic lick
of the dog’s dog love.

A love that sobbed
if he left the room,
clawed and scratched
at the closing door,
puked on the floor,
howled and yowled fit to wake the dead
till it shared his bed –
man’s best friend’s head
on the pillow,
eyes rolled back in their sockets,
blind, yellow.
Good dog, good chap, good boy,
good fellow...

He longed for a good night’s sleep,
a bath, a quiet meal
or a TV dinner,
an hour with a book.
He grew haggard, thinner,
but at his heel
the hound grew huge,
padded along
with the News in its jaws,
sat at his feet like a welcome mat
till he begged –
how he begged –
for a gerbil, a tortoise, hamster, a rabbit, a goldfish, a cat.

Carol Ann Duffy