Archangel Dog In The City Of Angels Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

Doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture
ever known to man... survival. Luis Bunuel

Dressed in a tutu cinching shiny tuxedo pants
and wagging his tail, he rides a bicycle down
La Cienega Avenue.

The red and blue clown shoes on his paws
semaphore with each turn of the pedals.
That is how he journeys the famous boulevard

of the arts in Los Angeles.
Riding sidesaddle to prevent his manly treasure
from being crushed by an accidental fall

he nearly misses the recessed driveway curb
to the entry of his art gallery exhibit.
Bouncing back, from behind him, the wheel

of a horse drawn cabriolet runs over him.
Yes it happens in the early nineteen hundreds.
The driver stops to look the bicyclist in the eye.

To assure himself the rider is still alive
he swings his arm handling the whip and slices
the eyes of the cyclist with the cracker of the flog.

With dead eyes the disfigured bicyclist stares
in horror and is startled by a miracle.
He props himself up. Woofs twice.

Grows wings instead of eyelids
and with a last potent flutter flies off into
a cowboy flaming sunset.