Some way I've organized this poem around--
this reading around my friendship with Steve
subliminally without thinking about it.
The next poem that I want to read is an odd poem.
I can't read it correctly.
It's written in fake old English,
so you're going to have to put up
with the bad reading that's going to sound like third rate
Robert Burns.
During one year about--
oh, it must be six or seven years ago now.
Steve and Gail and my wife and I all lived in the same house.
We have a large German shepherd dog
who was very skinny at that time and barely eight.
And Steve had an enormous Labrador named Tooley,
and the dogs were great friends.
And we had to find a house very quickly.
We found a house in a fairly middle class suburb, where
we were the only people around with long hair and things
like that.
And our dogs didn't help matters at all.
They kept escaping.
Steve had built a little fence around the yard that we had,
and the dogs would do things like--
oh, one time they began digging a hole
to try and get out under the fence,
and they were smart about it.
We'd go out in the yard, and one of them would lie in the hole
so that we wouldn't be able to see it, they thought.
But they erred in that they dug the hole parallel to the fence
instead of digging it under the fence.
So one day a friend came, dug them out from the other side,
and they escaped into the neighborhood, where they
were gone for a couple of days.
We kept getting calls from a thing called the Nuisance
Abatement Bureau.
[LAUGHTER]
This is about that.
It's called "Ye Brothers Dogg," for my dog Hodain D. Dogg
and for Tooley Orlen.
Ye dog, O'Toole, who has no work at love nor art,
nor goeth school, sayeth with fart
that Golden Rule, be it bitch, or biscuit,
or platter stew, your palate alone shall guide you.
Ye dog Hodain forgoeth bone, nor does disdain to moan.
For wind and rain, you snow and fog.
Your seasoned sun and world roll on, but your day as a dog
be not long.
Brothers two, you slim Hodain and fat O'Toole,
beneath fence diggeth hole.
Into the world, your brother's debts.
No would return your fat O'Toole and slim Hodain.
Soon his report, brothers two doth run amok in neighborhood.
[LAUGHTER]
Cautions O'Toole, Hodain, you may bark,
may scowl, and be rude, but do not
bite your hand which giveth dog food.
[LAUGHTER]
They'll all complain of brothers too.
No wind or rain does drive them home.
Thou sayeth Hodain to brother O'Toole,
though we have been friend through thick and thin,
dog needed some love from men.
So when you saw the brothers two, away they had flown,
and back they flew.
Reclineth in yard through seasons and sun.
To wind and rain, you snow, you fog.
O'Toole, Hodain, ye brothers dog."
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]