Preface To Gravity: What Comes Up Must Not Be Discussed

Yes, it was a picture of a dog barking at Jesus. The dog is a beagle named George. Jesus is a plastic statue in a graveyard. Please stop writing me poems about it!

That's the thing: I don't really mind poems. I like them. I write them myself, in my skin, with a razor & a bottle of Softsoap. & oftentimes, yes, I write them about pictures of dogs barking at kitschy representations of old-fashioned deities. But I don't send them to anyone. I certainly wouldn't send them to you.

For example, why would anyone send this to anyone, especially me:

   You don't love me Jesus
   Because I am a hound
   So I'll continue peeing
   On your hallowed ground

But Gary, is this so bad? Yes. It's bad for two reasons. First of all, George is himself an accomplished poet (as well as an accomplished urinator), so he can write poems from his own point of view when necessary (although he prefers to write from an "everydog" perspective). He simply doesn't need you to write poems from his vantage point. Secondly, it's not a very good poem. It doesn't really capture the essence of the photograph & it doesn't really explain why the dog thinks Jesus doesn't love him. Frankly, it doesn't scan.

What about the free verse poems I'm getting? As always, the free verse is worse:

   Beagle orphaned on crisp sunny day
   Lack a day! Lackadaisical!
   Alone, alone, but wait! alone,
   with nearer my god to thee
   porcelain plastic messiah!

I know, what the fuck?!? (By the way, "lackadaisical" comes from "lackaday," smart guy. What've you been doing, reading the Word Detective or something? Sheesh.) I would have been more impressed if the writer had rhymed something with "lackadaisical."

Enough! The three or four people who read this blog read it to find out if I have gone completely off the deep end, not to hear your poetry about photographs on blogs. Now please, let me write about the topics I'll cover on my show, & leave your poetry to other radio shows that deserve them. That one about the Lake in Minnesota, for example. Write to them.

Now I've got to go & explain this to George...