Sadfalada strikes again

They are everywhere, everywhere
on pretty streets, and ugly;
on walking paths, on beaches,
in parks, playgrounds, in shops,
in flimsy backyards
or suddenly in houses we thought secure
they bolt across open space, head low,
with eyes like fixed gravel
common as stones, everywhere
we see them, adrenaline scorches the image, body becomes trembling ice
yet we are told they cannot be known, that we deny the loss and toll,
and ignorance, accept

But this is how they may be known,
by hellish roil of nightmare sound
as a living thing
we love and protect,
in futile struggle, is ground down to death
and that death isn't quick, it's meant to prolong
the display of bloodcraft, the Raveners song
but this unknown actor works in silence,
the chorus provides him with shrieks and screams and blows, he will not relent
till costumed in blood and shreds of a dying soul
and is hurried from the scene by his keeper, grinning in furtive pride
and bloody footprints follow
like rose petals and confetti

Out on any busy midday street another performance is unfolding
in a cluster of anguish, the chorus of watchers heave
and lunge, in panic and horror
the dog unmoving and silent
as a little grey poodle is throttled
and lies flattened as an
Irregular shadow on the pavement
his only life a strangled thin scream
a fraying ribbon tying him to life
clinging to it as he is gripped
the throat
a throat no larger than a child's wrist
rising and falling with his owner's own shrieks
as he was thrashed into the sidewalk he had walked so happily
and his silly, soft curls
made him look like a child's frivolous plaything
Now broken, old, discarded, nothing
The bulldog, the bulldog
Is unadorned, as befits his task
he wears a metal collar and
on his huge head is marked
a death mask
and his thick mineral skull
Unassailable and cruel
digs down it's stone weight
to gnaw, shake, and chew
the slaps, tugs, and splashing
does nothing to deter
he thinks it only due his dire work
receive the honor
his owner still straddles him,
that gargoyle to buttress
and whines and tugs, and knocks
his head
tells him time to soon desist
when then the poodle escapes, and scrambles free
it's joy in life forever tainted
but the bulldog in his owners grasp
Is raised upright as though sainted
and put on view between her legs
it's meaty forelegs spread stiffly wide
as though to show her dog was braced
for contender or for homicide
a steroidal toad, might think some not in the Pit troops
an unnatural creature for delusional dupes.