"I Know You Are, But What Am I?"

TO AN EPISTOLARY POOCH-SCREWER

I heard you're screwing the pooch.
Well? Zat true? Are you?
Screwing the pooch?
Or are you merely attempting
a seduction of the pooch,
handfeeding the pooch, patting its belly,
muzzling the pooch and then
art-raping the pooch in amateur porn,
cleverly using innuendo to undermine
the pooch's sense of amour-propre
and convincing the pooch that it's okay
that you posted your pooch-screw
on YouPorn dot com
while it was taking a nap,
so that the screwed pooch
is beaten down, now assumes the position
without even a low warning growl?
Do you have pooch-burn on your legs
or thighs from screwing the pooch?
Are you giving the pooch
a reach-around or fluffing
the balled ornaments on the pooch
which remind everybody of poodle topiary
while you are screwing the pooch?
Is the museum or the Countess-culture
letting you tell in mimeo magazines
that you are screwing the pooch
and correctly assessing this screw
as a twee gesture of the first water?
If Frank O'Hara came back to life,
would he want to watch you screw the pooch?
Would he sit on a milk crate
in your apartment at 3 a.m.
and occasionally look up as you screw the pooch
while standing, and occasionally clear his throat
while smoking and paging through an art rag
in whose pages many desirable men screw other, more desirable pooches?
Would you feel offended if Frank O'Hara
left your aparment before you were done
screwing the pooch. Would you yell, "Frank! Wait!"
and pull out of the poodle to chase him
down the stairs to make sure you were still cool?
Would you screw a different pooch
if you were in prison for a long time
and couldn't have your normal sexual release?
Is it understood you are actually
showing great restraint when you screw the pooch?
Can I watch?
Did you give the pooch roofies?
Do you ask it as a joke in bars:
"How many artists does it take to screw the pooch?"
And then answer in a drunken voice: "One! Just me!"
and begin slapping fellow drunks on the back and ass?
Did you learn to screw the pooch in prison
or in a legendary band you were in?
Will you blog screwing the pooch
but in an oblique manner to match
your oblique manners and oblique commentary,
your oblique means and oblique furniture,
your oblique modes of transporation,
oblique food and oblique ex-lovers,
oblique possible lovers, oblique sneakers,
oblique silverware, oblique hair,
oblique mailbox, oblique metrosexualcard,
oblique Hohner harmonica, the oblique marionnette
hanging in your tiny oblique bathroom,
oblique condoms from a country nobody remembers
and oblique cup from HARDEES displayed
in oblique irony atop a yellow book
atop an oblique table that lost a leg
to an oblique mood you experienced once.
A table can stand on three legs.
It can. Even without being a tripod.
A table can stand on three legs.
Will you screw the pooch so well
that the pooch will hobble on three legs
to eat after it's done being screwed?
Will the pooch hold the lame leg
in the air like a limp wrist
to demonstrate how well it's been screwed?
Do you think this world is full
of frozen lovers and does it affect
your ability to focus while screwing the pooch?
Can you screw the pooch with one hand
and one leg tied behind your back?
Prove it. Let me bring the pooch out here right now.
Have you tag-teamed the pooch?
Have you gotten the pooch ganged
by 1) a bunch of your friends
or 2) a bunch of strangers you just called up
into your apartment from the streets.
Have you barebacked the pooch?
Do you screw the pooch on Sundays too
or is that a holy day?
Does screwing the pooch
fit into your retirement plan,
and will you get the pooch
a passport so you can take it with you
to tropical islands and northern climes
and screw it there?
If you screw the pooch after midnight
does it turn into a bunch of Gremlins?
After screwing the pooch
if you click your heels together three times
does the pooch magically go back into the doghouse?
Do you have to feed the pooch
after screwing it or do you kick it
to the glitter-covered curb where you found it
and lured it into your dwelling
with a promise that you are "not a pooch screwer?'
Do you feel bad about lying to the pooch
about that or did it turn you on more
while you were banging the pooch to know this.
Did you ever give the pooch multiple orgasms
or pull the pooch's hair from behind
and say nasty things as the pooch looked up
into your eyes with its soulful christly eyes.
Is it true that you said you "screw the pooch
with the best of them?" And what does it mean?
Does your imaginary epitaph
have anything to do with you screwing the pooch?
Do you think a century after you are dead
people will not really know a thing about you,
but will stay say, "We do know he screwed the pooch.
We know he nailed it shut. I mean DAY-UM!"
Will you be buried near the pooch
and Jim Morrison in Pere-Lachaise
or do you think the pooch will be buried
with one of its other screwers.
Will you be so popular in death
that someone makes a YouTube video
of you screwing the pooch
in which both you and the pooch
are entirely made of colorful Legos?
Do you care if I tell others
that you are screwing the pooch
or is this a down-low pooch screw?
Do you think you'll ever end up on Maury
with the pooch sitting in a chair
and glaring at you,
awaiting the results of a lie detector test
and paternity test?
Do you wake up in a cold sweat sometimes
in the middle of the night
and reach for the pooch to screw?
If one time this happens
and the pooch is no longer there,
will you still keep a bio ready
or do you think you will you decide it's time
to cash in the pooch chips,
and we'll see you at Pooch Anonymous,
drinking a frappucino and carrying a journal
in which the phrase "days without pooch"
is written in capitals
and the number next to it circled
repeatedly and savagely, as though you
were in pooch-recovery but your hand was not?
Will you write the pooch an apology letter
one day and then get angry anyway
when the pooch doesn't respond to your letter?
Will you ask for the pooch
on your deathbed? Will you cry
when you see the pooch's children
in the street and realize you'd screw them
if given half the chance?
And when the pooch's children
run into you on their way
to some pooch club, will you try
to be the sly old man
and say something cryptic
as they look at you with disgust
on their way somewhere more relevant
than the digs of a veteran pooch-screwer,
or a street filled with starving
pooch-screwing Bohemians
who all knew dozens of pooch-screwers
who died "mad young."
Do you always say the requiescat
when you cross the holy ground
where the young pooch-screwers
screwed the pooch, when they were alive
and feeling it? Are you a pooch poacher now?
Do you illegally harvest pooches to screw?
Do you say pooch-screwing prayers at night?
Do you want to die in poochscrew interruptus?
Do you put eyeliner on the pooch?
Before you screw the pooch, I mean.
Do you dress the pooch in the t-shirt
that smells like your last girlfriend?
Do you trim the pooch's nails
so they don't make that clicking noise
on the linoleum in the kitchen
while you're screwing it?
Do you massage the pooch
with baby oil and then screw it?
Do you cook pasta for the pooch you screw
or drizzle balsamic vinegar on reggiano
and feed this to the pooch
while screwing it from behind?
Do you tuck the pooch in after you screwed it,
and kiss the pooch goodnight on its topknot.
Do you fear when you close your eyes
for more than five seconds
that the pooch you screw will be gone
when you open them? Do you want to just chain
the pooch in your apartment window
to make other pooch-screwers insanely jealous.
Do you have the pooch make telephone calls
to your friend while you're screwing it
and laugh when your friends can't tell
you're screwing the pooch
at just that moment?
Do you think it's sick
or marginally okay that you try
to screw the pooch even when it's sick
or malnourished or feels as though
its life is completely meaningless?
Do you give the pooch a gift
later to "make up" for this behavior.
Do you put mental quotation marks
around phrases when you try to rationalize
screwing the pooch in the Big Picture?
Do you believe there even is a Big Picture
and if so, where does pooch-screwing
rank in the scheme of things?
Can a sport ever be an art?
Wiil you ever admit your pooch-screwing
is a sport and not an art?
Is pooch-screwing the Sportive Life
and is there a magazine dedicated to it
written by fellow pooch-screwing enthusiasts?
When does your subscription run out
and should I give you a gift renewal
on your next birthday?
Let me know.
P.S. And how do I get off this
pooch-screwing subscription list
you put me on for some voyeuristic reason?
I don't do pooch or Hal Hartley.
Please try to understand.
I am a fan of Pooch Screwing Amnesty International.
But hope this won't come between us
or Our Friendship.

XO