and god said unto them: set my people free
Today I am Noah of the dogs
And the flood is coming
But I am also the Moses of dogs.
Follow me, my canine brothers and sisters
as I part the Red Sea.
As I shepherd you all to the promised land.
Week by week, my flock grows.
Idiot college kids too hung over
to walk their designer dogs
out to pee at three in the morning.
Now won’t they be so sad☹️
Baby’s first puppy run away with a cult.
I name them Dopey and Thumper and Dumdum
and they jump at the sound of my voice.
I name them One’r and Two’ser and Trey.
I am not the dog whisperer, I am the dog cult Jesus.
I am David Koresh, I am Marshall Applewhite,
I am Jim Jones,
my belly scratching, doggie Kool Aid.
I lead them to the school,
to the park,
the Waffle-House dumpster.
On to city hall!
And home again.
I scratch their butts,
I rub their ears.
I whisper sweet-nothings,
I howl my howl
and shed them my tears.
Every morning I check the shelter websites,
stake out every neighborhood,
tear down every flier.
Missing: Miss Bella.
Be on the look out for Baxter.
300 dollars for the return of FiFi.
I walk them past your houses
and we all share a laugh.
I walk them past your houses
and ask them if they’re better off.
Woof woof, they all say.
They snarl at the backyards
where you left them to sleep.
They throw up their hackles
at the abandoned leashes
tethered to every tree.
The dog man I am.
You can call me mangy Abe Lincoln:
the Great Emancipator,
of dogs.
But you’ll never catch me.
At every dawn I’ll be gone.
All ten, eighteen, nineteen,
twenty of us back home.
Call animal control if you want.
Bring your taser guns
and your city government.
Your dogs are destined for a life
bigger than you could provide them.
I am just a simple dog walker,
a pack guide for a journey far beyond
this sad world of men and women.
And never shall we stray.
Nor shall I ever lead them astray.
dream a little dream… of televised family massacres
Last night I dreamed Keith Morrison
was sleeping over, he and I lying
parallel and facing each other
like two teenaged girls,
heads on our hands, all smiles,
Keith with that bemused look
he gives when he isn’t somber, compassionate, or perplexed,
Haven’t you heard my old friend?
Those monstrous Piketon murders of Southern Ohio,
oh wouldn’t they make for such mystery?
And misery and human interest,
the perfect episode of Dateline,
narrated in all its fine poetry
by you, Keith.
Oh why must you toy with me?
Oh sure, oh sure, oh yes, you bet.
Those dreamy blue eyes,
my favorite silver coiffe.
But Keith there were 8 horrific murders.
Two houses.
One night.
The Hatfields and McCoys
But bloodier, more calculated,
One whole family executed.
By another whole family of executioners.
Over a little girl.
A pretty cheating girlfriend.
Oh sure, oh sure, oh yes. Of course.
Oh Keith, why can’t I stay mad at you?
Oh well, you know. It’s just one of those things sometimes.
Yes, yes, it is one of those things, Keith.
The way you are one of those things.
Oh gosh, I could lie here all night,
Lose sleep in your ever patient gaze,
Mapping the rivers of the world
in the aging topography of your face.
Oh Keith, what drama we’d make,
if only you’d lean on me
the way you lean on everything else
that bends to your big cock charisma.
how you know this pome is a goodass pome
Because it has mother-
fuckin’ line breaks in it
and a yearling pig
a man about to
shoot said yearling pig
a commentary
on the color of their eyes
on innocence
and bacon
that doesn’t rhyme
or follow
a strict meter
but ends with
a young girl
with a dandelion
singing mama had a baby
and its head fell off
to the tune of pigs
squealing and dying
the stench of death
and feces
it takes a real turn
at the end.
a real actual poem-poem
You know this is an actual poem poem
because it begins with the weather,
the color of the sky,
the outline of the horizon
at the sunset or sunrise.
It’s either bleak or beautiful.
You decide.
It’s kind of like that picture
with the duck that’s also a rabbit,
the old hag and the young beauty.
There’s a smell to it,
a summer/fall/spring wind.
The sound of a bird
and the scientific name of said bird.
Trees and squirrels and shit.
Facts about bees and pollination
and sexualizing of the words stamen and pistil
… stinger… nectar…
Flashbacks to memories of yesteryear,
the poet’s unhealthy relationship
with the poet’s mother.
Seeing her naked in a semi-traumatizing,
yet edifying way.
The color and shape of her labia
protruding ever so slightly
from her ungroomed bush
like another kind of ungroomed bush,
the genus of said bush
growing outside
the poet’s childhood bedroom.
But back to the mother,
she’s eating a peach
while doing laundry
while sunning
while waiting
for the laundry to dry.
Peach. Not banana.
Maybe she’s dead now,
maybe she’s dying of cancer
and living downstairs
from the poet’s childhood
room in the basement.
Can she still walk?
Does she still have sexual urges?
Does she touch herself
when the sixty-year-old poet
goes to bed?
It’s unclear.
There’s nothing about Pornhub,
how it smells,
your girlfriend’s
vomiting of your semen
along with all her Mikes Hards
all over the crotch
of your Levi’s
after she gives you
your first blowjob.
At age forty-three.
How long you’ve waited
to be swallowed whole.
Nothing about that video
of RayJay and Kim K,
Paris Hilton in night vision,
the hip hop group 2LiveCrew
and all the booty-girls from their rap videos
that made you feel funny even at the time–
the combination of young women objectified
at the intersection of white-kid [x] of black culture
at the intersection of the boner you’ve tucked
into the waistband of your extra-large,
extra-long Jumpman shorts.
There’s the word nary in there.
In this Actual Poem by Real Poet.
In lieu of that, it takes a turn
to extended metaphor
that requires a basic understanding
of photosynthesis
and the nesting habits of chickadees.
Representations of poet’s mother’s miscarriage
before she got stuck with the poet.
The satisfied, yet quizzical sighs of You
the Real Poem Reader.
Questions that not even the poet can answer.
You learn all this about the poem
when you see the poet read
and someone else in the audience who cares
more than you do
asks if this poem
–their favorite poem–
was in any way a comment on rape culture?
Vis a vis our culture’s puritanical views on sex.
And he–the Real Poet,
the old white white-haired man
who hasn’t had a hair cut in years,
the man in jeans, polo shirt, blazer–
puts a finger to his reedy lips,
not to shush the questioner,
but not not to shush them either.
Hmmmm, he says.
That is the question now isn’t it?
I don’t know.
He chuckles softly to himself.
Some of that, obviously, he says.
He segues into a long diatribe
about our trend toward the displacement
of the natural world.
Our being unclear to everyone but the poet.
Which is how you know he’s a Real Poet.
The way he can say fuck you to people
who actually bothered to read
and try to understand his poems in the first place.
But do so in a way that makes them feel inferior
for having tried.
In conclusion:
Larvae of the painted lady butterfly
munching slowly on wormwood,
plant genus Artemisia,
named for Artemis,
the greek goddess of the hunt,
the wilderness, wild animals,
the Moon, and chastity.
The color of the sky turning above,
the mountains in the distance.
All that good poetry-type shit.
this poem didn’t start the fire (though not for a lack of trying)
Among other things, things that started the fire:
Joe Dimaggio.
Panmunjom.
England’s got a new queen.
Rock Around the Clock
California Baseball.
Wheel of Fortune.
British politician sex.
Cola wars.
JFK…
Blown away…
What else do I have to say…!?
Among other things, things that did not start the fire:
Matches.
Lighters.
Tipped over candles.
Gas-powered stoves.
Faulty electric wiring.
Flamethrowers.
Lightning strikes.
The Human Torch of Fantastic Four fame.
Nor Billy Joel.
Nor us.
Nor we.
But it’s been burning
Since the world’s been turning.
And Billy Joel can’t take it anymore.
The implication that we can’t/shouldn’t take it anymore either.
Like that other song We’re Not Going to Take It (Anymore).
By Twisted Sister.
Dee Snyder now a staunch Republican and a bigtime MAGAT.
Whereas Billy Joel’s an oldfart alcoholic, a Me-Too guy waiting to be canceled.
If he wasn’t already essentially retired.
Only the Good Die Young.
Another song by Billy Joel.
Who at age seventy-two is raising two little kids.
Raising probably too strong a word
The bulk of the raising left to his fourth wife.
Who’s thirty years younger.
His youngest daughter born thirty-two years after his first.
Whose mother is Christie Brinkley.
So fuck yeah, William Martin Joel is still fighting that fire.
The fire in his loins!
Hit the drum roll.
Cut the sad trombones.
Cut to eye roll.
Put a quarter in the jukebox.
It’s Still Rock in Roll to Me
Would be a good way to end this.
But maybe a bit confusing.
Same with:
Sing us the song, you’re the piano man.
But then again:
We didn’t start the fire.
It’s always burning.
Since the world’s been burning.
No we didn’t light it.
But we tried to fight it.
So it’s not our fault.
None of this.
Not, especially, not Billy Joel
Nor Billy Joel’s fiery loins.
this poem didn’t start the fire, redux: but what if it did?
When I was fourteen,
I burned my house down
masturbating in the closet.
This isn’t entirely true
but isn’t far off either.
It was early November
in northern Wisconsin.
Which is to say it was cold as shit.
And we had a wood furnace.
That worked like shit.
I’d stolen two space heaters
from our barn.
For lambing season.
Instead of keeping newborn lambs
from freezing,
I used them to keep myself
and myself warm.
It was the issue of Sports Illustrated
with Tyra Banks on the cover.
I exhausted myself.
My room had the best, softest carpet.
I fell asleep (because I had exhausted myself).
I forgot to set my alarm.
The next morning my mother came
in to ask why I wasn’t up yet.
I had to hop to and such and such.
I bumbled and fumbled around
the way they do in movies.
But I managed to get my pants on
and get to school on time.
I forgot the heaters on.
I forgot the foldout of Tyra
lying there next to the heaters.
I got called to the office
in sixth-hour study hall.
My house was on fire.
More accurately:
I’d set my house on fire masturbating.
The fire had started on my side of the house.
My mother used to tell me
it wasn’t my fault.
It was the old wood furnace,
also on my side of the house.
I didn’t believe her
and I don’t believe her.
She never showed me any official report.
And my mother would never
have it in her heart
to blame me
for burning down her house
with my careless masturbating.
And now she’s dead.
If there’s a heaven
and if that heaven
is the heaven they show in TV,
she’s up there somewhere
with a big beautiful house,
knowing the truth
about the night before the fire.
I’d told her I was up all night
reading Sports Illustrated.
I never told her
reading = masturbating
to Tyra Banks’s big boobs.
RIP Mom.
RIP house.
RIP Tyra Banks’s bigass boobs.
Image generated somewhere
ABOUT THE POET
drevlow runs BULL, a lit mag about toxic masculinity & the author of the book of rusty (2022), a good ram is hard to find (2021), ina-baby: a love story in reverse (2021), & bend with the knees and other love advice from my father (2008). you can find these & other works linked at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com or on x/twitter, insta, face, and threads @thedrevlow.
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