This is what the world needs! A key.

And as I turn the tin sarcophagus back,
they lie there front to back, back

to front like batteries, alternating poles or
lovers charged in some final

indecent act. Keats would imagine them
as mummies clutching the broken promise

to their chests among the fine
apothecary store of organs. What is good

is that they are foreign. Portuguese,
I think. So they can be trusted. Even better,

they are headless, their joy complete. Without
tails there is no maneuvering, no

ferry of slaves to row them across
the river. Yet, I am here, like John

Donne with a plastic fork, lifting their gauze
of elegant bone, such flimsy ladders, on which

the metaphysica of their souls, the promenade
of odor, climbs into this, my dirty kitchen,

their blinking florescent end.

Praise For  Waking the Deaf Dog

- John Witte
Editor, NORTHWEST REVIEW
This poet doesn't shy. Michael Madonick's poems address our core concerns, with death, faith, parenting, and historical and personal accountability. His best work is distinguished by a clarity of intent, and empathy, most often for the small or isolated. We find here a consistent, convincing and uniquely authorial voice, propelled by a rich and nimble diction and prosodic resourcefulness. The speaker is accessible always, the poems documenting an intelligent, open-minded and open-hearted engagement with the world.

*

- Jack Stillinger
author of Reading "The Eve of St. Agnes" and other critical studies
His poems are brilliant. There are many different voices in the work so far, the result of a surpassingly rich imagination and range. The topics and formal innovations are all over the map—a further display of versatility—and the comedy and seriousness are beautifully mixed. Madonick keeps in touch with good writers, living and dead. These are pieces that actually trap a reader—and the trapped reader is delighted.

*

- Renée Ashley  author of The Various Reasons of Light
Madonick's poems are rich with both strength and grace. He hears what we should hear, sees what we should see. His wit is seductive and poignant -- and his versions of our lives are pointed and, oddly and often terrifyingly, comforting. The world, he tells us, is ours; it has barbs and beauties. It bites back. Michael David Madonick is capable of waking the deaf dog in us all.