This week’s choice is “Dachshunds With Erections Can’t Climb Stairs” by Les Barker which I have chosen because it’s funny.
The dog who doesn’t care
Les Barker (1947—2023)
Will be the dog who wins the day
You’ll never get to heaven
With your chopper in the way.
Poem 442. Dachshunds With Erections Can’t Climb Stairs
Each night she’s on the balcony;
He loves her from afar,
His soft, sad eyes are hypnotised;
She shines down like a star.
His heart will break forever;
His kind can’t have affairs;
For Dachshunds with erections
Can’t climb stairs.
His home’s a humble bungalow
And hers a penthouse flat.
He cannot go where she can go
And that, they say, is that.
He never can be near her
Although she knows he cares;
For Dachshunds with erections
Can’t climb stairs.
You want to win a woman?
Just be cool, be aloof
The dog who doesn’t hit the stairs
Can make it to the roof.
The dog who doesn’t care
Will be the dog who wins the day
You’ll never get to heaven
With your chopper in the way.
The spirit soars, the body falls
And heavy lies the heart
That cries out with the pain of love
Be still my broken part.
How painful is the passion
And painful the repairs
For Dachshunds with erections
Can’t climb stairs.
This poem by Les Barker has made me laugh ever since I first heard it. Barker imagines the obstacles in the way of a sausage dog smitten with desire for another canine who lives upstairs from him and concludes that unless the poor Dachshund can suppress the outward manifestation of his emotions, he is doomed to remain on the ground floor.
Barker suggests the impediments to the dog’s sexual success with a varying level of euphemism but in several cases I am reminded of Tim Brooke-Taylor’s comment on one of the more outrageous Samantha introductions in I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue: “There’s not much double about that entendre.”
I like this poem because Barker’s fertile imagination presents a patently ridiculous situation that is inherently funny and his commentary on it never fails to amuse me: “You’ll never get to heaven/With your chopper in the way” and “Be still my broken part” make me laugh each time. You can find several performances of the poem online and on Les Barker’s CDs which are available from Amazon. I’d also encourage you to get hold of his three table books: The Mrs Ackroyd Occasional Table Book, The Mrs Ackroyd Bird Table Book and The Mrs Ackroyd Periodic Table Book. All three books contain Barker’s fantastic poetry interspersed with his own photographs taken during his travels around the world and in the UK. I’m going to suggest Les Barker’s own performance at Brampton Live 2007 which is in the same video clip as two other poems: “The Y Files” and “The Verb To Be” both of which I may cover in future editions of Poet’s Day.