and all the sick, perverted

and all the sick, perverted

bastards of the world
deserve to die an awful,
bloody death…

i was picking my dog up
at the vet
today
and while i was
waiting for them
to bring her out
i looked over
at the big white dog on my right
and was shocked to see
it had an ear missing
and part of its skull was gone.

it looked like an old wound
that had healed over
and i nodded at the owner
and asked:
“what happened
to your pooch? she
get hit by a car
or something?”

“nah”, he said, “she’s
a rescued dog.”

“rescued?”

“yeah, we found her in
the road, thrown out,
with her ear gone
and her head half torn away.”

“what happened?”

“the cop said
they see it all the time.
they figure she was raised
by people who fight pit bulls
and you can tell by looking at her
that she’s real sweet
and i guess
when she wouldn’t fight
she was
probably just
used.”

“used?

for what?”

“bait.”

neither one of us
said a word.

i knelt down
and gave her a hug
and scratched her neck
and when i did
she turned real quick
and gave me a great
big wet sloppy kiss.

right on the face.

and all the sick, perverted
bastards of the world
deserve to die
an awful,
bloody death.

I'm interested to know if this was based on true events. Because here, where I live, they'd put a dog like that down and the owners, if caught, might, MIGHT, get a fine, lose their right to own dogs for a couple of years, and spend a few nights in jail.

this IS based on true events...and on top of that, this poem has taken on a life of itself...and the dog, even more so. the back-story is this: shortly after the poem was first published in a magazine...before it showed up in my book SHOOT THE MOON, a friend of mine who knows me and kathy are dog lovers, sent me this e-mail saying "i'm attaching this poem, i found it on the internet...you've gotta read it!"...of course, to my surprise and delight...it was my own poem (minus my name at the bottom). well, time passed and the poem got included in my latest book. then, a few months after the book came out, i'm down here in the basement writing, and kathy yells to me..."john! John! it's your dog! come quick! it's your dog!" i run up the stairs and there on the Oprah friggin' Winfrey show is this same dog! turns out Oprah was doing a show on great and special loves, and one of her producers had heard about this dog...well, the dog, who turned out to be named Oogie, was on the Oprah Winfrey show. i ended up sending the owners a copy of my book and they sent back a very nice letter saying they've been incredibly blessed in having this dog, and their kids were blown away that their own dog was already on Oprah and was written about in a book.
cool story, huh?
jy

I second the emotion

db

Very cool and great piece!

What I like about your work (as much as I've read) is that each piece (although I'm questioning whether it's poetry) tells a story. This is my favorite by far.

Kellycakes wrote:

What I like about your work (as much as I've read) is that each piece (although I'm questioning whether it's poetry) tells a story. This is my favorite by far.

You know, I'm kind of in the same place with your work John. I feel you are one Hell of a writer, but is it poetry, flash fiction, some mixture, or something else all together? Personally, I don't feel too much of a need to label it or you beyond saying it's enjoyable, anything beyond that is just arguing semantics.