Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Bark - by Rand

You can't tell
if their bark
is worse than
their bite
until you've been
bitten

3 comments:

  1. Bark, George
    A Poem in Praise of Jules Feiffer and for my friend, rand
    (cross-posted to Instapoem)
    http://frombulgariatonorthdakota.blogspot.com/2011/05/poem-of-day-bark-george.html

    1.

    There's a picture book I really like called Bark, George.
    It's written and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.
    If you know anything about Feiffer, you probably suspect that the book is a little unusual.
    Another great but unusual book written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Feiffer is called the Phantom Tollbooth.
    I like it, and so does my eleven year old son, Michal.

    2.

    In the book, George is a dog who has a little trouble barking.
    So, his mother takes him to the vet to get the problem looked at.
    The vet says, "bark, George," and, instead, he meows.
    So, the vet puts on a glove, reaches inside George's mouth, and pulls out a cat.
    They try it again, and George makes another, non-barking noise, and the vet pulls out another animal.
    The last sound George makes is moo, and the vet pulls out a cow.
    Even after all that, there's still a surprise ending.

    3.

    Feiffer has also written some other pictures books that are quite good.
    One of them I got from the library recently is about a dog with no tail.
    Like Bark, George, it certainly is a book with an original sense of humor.
    For example, at one point in the story, the dog finds something to use as a tail, but it doesn't wag.
    The dog finds a wagon maker, and asks him to make it wag.
    When the wagon maker says he can't do that, the dog looks for another solution.
    He goes to battery park and puts a battery in the tail and that makes it wag.

    4.

    Feiffer has a new book out called My Side of the Car.
    He made the book with his daughter, which I think is a nice thing.
    Another author, Bernard Waber, did the same thing recently.
    Starting in the sixties, he made a series of books about Lyle the crocodile.
    Lyle is a good natured crocodile who lives on the upper East side of Manhattan.
    Waber and his daughter, Paulis, did another book about Lyle, recentl

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bark


    I fear i may soon find out

    Their bite is worse than their bark

    ReplyDelete
  3. The thing about bark:
    It protects the soft,
    Vunlerable heart of the tree,
    Keeping out predators
    And disease.
    What, pray tell,
    Lies behind your hardened exterior,
    My little tree?
    What, pray tell,
    Does that thick, rough layer
    Hide from my eyes
    My dearest heart?

    ReplyDelete