This is a poem about my dog.
This poem was read on NET poetry series
and they got lots of letters about the program
all about my dog, not a word about poetry.
This dog trots freely in the street and sees reality
and the things he sees are bigger than himself.
And the things he sees are his reality.
Drunks in doorways, moons on trees.
The dog trots freely through the streets and the things he sees
are smaller than himself.
Fish on newsprint, ants in holes, chickens in Chinatown
windows their heads a block away.
The dog trots freely in the street and the things
he smell smells something like himself.
The dog trots freely in the street past puddles and babies,
cats and cigars, pool rooms and policemen.
He doesn't hate cops he merely has no use for them
and he goes past them and pass the dead cows
hung a pole in front of the San Francisco meat market.
He would rather eat a tender cow than a tough policeman.
Though either might do.
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory and past Coit
Tower and past Congressman Doyle of the Un-American Committee.
He's afraid of Coit tower but he's not
afraid of Congressman Doyle.
Although what he hears is very discouraging, very depressing,
very absurd to the sad young dog like himself,
to a serious dog like himself but he has his own free world
to live in.
His own fleas to eat.
He will not be muzzled.
Congressman Doyle is just another fire hydrant to him.
[APPLAUSE]
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live and to think about
and to reflect upon, touching and tasting and testing
everything investigating everything
without benefit of perjury.
A real realist with a real tale to tell
and a real tale to tell it with.
A real live barking Democratic dog
engaged in real free enterprise with something
to say about ontology.
Something to say about reality and how to see it
and how to hear it with his head cocked sideways
at street corners as if he is always just
about to have his picture taken for Victor Records.
Listening for his master's voice and looking like a living
question mark into the grade gramophone
a puzzling existence with its wondrous hollow horn,
which always seems just about to spout forth
some victorious answer to everything.
[APPLAUSE]