Samantha

Samantha Bevins was at war

with Hiram Jenks, the man next door,

whose dog made her yard an eye sore.

For his big St. Bernard would not

evacuate on Hiram’s plot.

No, her yard was it’s favorite spot,

leaving her a bit unstrung

when she observed the piles of dung

which she then had to stroll among.

She near’ became a nervous wreck

each time she had thus to inspect

a yard beyond power to protect.

She craved a verdant landscape where

no mole was ever spotted there

or other source of disrepair.

Thus Hiram’s mammoth St. Bernard

was an anathema in her yard,

wounding her like a petard.

And yet she didn’t have a clue

as to whatever she might do

to keep that animal off-view.

And Hiram didn’t seem to care

that Gentle Ben went anywhere

it wanted whence, when done, would dare

to trot up to Samantha and

wag his tail to beat the band

and then to slobber on her hand.

 He was convivial and she

was glad it acted so friendly

since she, with some temerity,

feared that such a hunk of fluff,

if in a mood considered gruff,

might knock her squarely on her duff!

So there she was, ‘tween love and hate,

watching it evacuate

one morning at the crack of eight,

asking herself, “what can I do

to keep that dog from my purview

and rid myself of its doo doo?”

Such was a puzzle...yes indeed!

Yet from her past there came a seed

which grew into a hardy weed.

For when a girl, she’d lived out west

and at her home one time a guest

invited her to come and test

his newest gun to shoot small game.

“Girls” he’d said, “should stake a claim

to guns.” He’d talked of Annie’s fame,

Oakley that is, a woman who

could shoot the eye out of a shrew.

Samantha thus knew what to do.

At Hardware Hank’s she bought a gun,

air driven, but with force to stun.

And then she waited under the sun

one day for Hiram’s St. Bernard

to do its business in her yard,

ready to play her new trump card,

whence as that big beast squatted there

she popped it in its derriere,

causing a look of some despair,

magnified when once again

another slug hit Gentle Ben,

which promptly yelped a dog amen

and ran to do its job elsewhere.

Patiently she waited there,

each time he came to hit him square-

ly where it hurt, so it would leave

the scene, an act she wouldn’t grieve.

It neither bobbed now would it weave,

just run to some place out of sight,

attesting thus to Pavlov’s might,

proving his theories were right

as after while it wouldn’t squat

upon what was its favorite spot

since it perceived there’d come a shot

which really wouldn’t ring its chime.

It tried another spot one time

which it considered truly prime,

whence, bam, it got it in the rear!

And thus it became very clear

that this yard was a place to fear!

Samantha’s glee was in high heat.

Though when she was out on the street

she’d try to make each hike complete

by greeting Ben, who’d lick her hand

and wag his tale to beat the band,

as if he didn’t understand

from whom the shell and shot had come

that made his derriere go numb.

But as for Hiram, she played dumb

when he discussed, over the fence,

the change in Ben, one so immense

that it, to him, made little sense.

For Gentle Ben, the St. Bernard,

now pooped, instead, in Hiram’s yard.

Thus Hiram had to be on guard

when strolling all about lest he

be victim to a tragedy

and soil his shoes as once did she.

As for Samantha, one fine day,

her life no more in disarray,

she chose to join the N.R.A.!