“Little Children Riding Dogs” and Other Poems

Close-up of a succulent.

Little Children Riding Dogs

Oh my God I love the idea of little children riding dogs so much 
to think of how they’d dress them
I want to be a kid again
and ride my dog to elementary school Bucko! Rex! Socrates! Zeus!
and dismount at the school and send the dog home 
also I had this idea
if all the children rode their dogs to school
when they get there at 8:15 the children say sit
and the dogs just sit there
all day in the sun
the flagpole shadow rolling over their backs like a sundial
while inside the children learn until the bell rings
and they burst out of the school
and mount their dogs and ride them home 
and some of them get home at dusk
that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever thought

Insults for Succulents 

Mandatory menagerie of neoliberal macguffins.
Viridian totems of foregone desire. 
Weakling cacti of vacant sanctimony. 
Inedible compôte of biopunk shurikens.

Depressing little water diapers.
Eyeless leeches of unsung ardor.
Sad unfunny jungle of error.
Living library of goblin ordure.

Clown college of photosynthetic underachievers.
Herbaceous shrine to the opposite of awe.
Runt stalagmites of chlorophyllic dysphoria. 
Delicate bullpen of alien ganglia.

Huddle of mute aesthetic hostages.
Demonic tentacle starter pack.
Pseudoanalgesic crown of false thorns. 
Old friends, open wounds, terrible choices.

The Late Knight

My literary style is my armor.

The things I say being cool
my long, sharp sword.

An effective title
my flip-down visored helm.

My graduate degree is my horse.
All the books I’ve ever read

are my bones, and all the music
I’ve listened to, my muscles.

Opening the notes app on my phone
to jot down a phrase

or a joke that popped into my head
in the shower, or while cooking

or driving, me riding into battle—
a battle I’m always late for. 

The pale blue light of the phone
on my face as I revise

and extend or curtail the phrase
the blood-red sun hanging low

over the battlefield
holding the moment in place—

the battlefield littered
with so many dead

bodies upon dead bodies
the hooves of my horse

sink only into flesh
never touching the actual earth.

The battlefield stretches
beyond the horizon

beyond the last imagination of man.


Mark Leidner is the author of several books of poetry, including, most recently, Returning the Sword to the Stone (Fonograf, 2021), as well as a short story collection, Under the Sea (Tyrant Books, 2018). He also wrote the science fiction feature film Empathy, Inc. (2019).


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She’s Only a Child