Spontaneous Poetry, Sunday, September 13th

From: "Facebook"
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 12:26 PM
To: "Keith Badowski"
Subject: Elsie Austin sent you a message on Facebook...

Elsie sent you a message.

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Re: Poetry Challenge for Sunday

ew...but, what's on my mind today is boring, but, here goes...and, if you can make anything lovely out of this, I will make your favorite dessert for Oct. 1...

steering committee
treasurer's reports
budgets
faculty
contests
honoraria
travel expense
food, drink and snacks
grants
seed money
registrar reports
paint peeling
paint drying
snooze fest
thing a noose around my neck
poetry
fiction
creative non-fiction
literary agents
manuscripts
ad infinitum
ad nauseum
Anastasia
writers' conferences
turnip seeds
compost
tiller
Yoville
Facebook
hackers
swine flu
avian flu
sneeze

I do apologize in advance but trust that twinkle in your eye! Best of good fortune on making this anything lovely and fun....Elsie
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Inpawspicious Beginning by Keith Badowski

We needs have words, Mr. Doggie Doo!
I see you there in my bed comfy as can be.
I know your spraying sneeze is no avian flu
and your eviction requires no steering committee.

This snooze fest, you’ve milked it, it’s over!
You’ve filed no travel expenses, no budget requests
so I’m certain you’re no flunky to President Rover.
If you push it, I’ll launch a formal inquest

to determine just what you do to deserve food,
drink, and snacks, turning my seed money to compost.
Your paws across the drying paint disclaim you’re good,
as does the treasurer’s report on the missing pot roast.

It would be different if your paws could type
or hold a pencil and you could maybe write a grant.
In this age of post-postmodernism the time is ripe
for a dog to write fiction in addition to scratch and pant.

See I’d like something tangible from the honoraria
I gift you—the way I get turnips from turnip seeds.
So far you fake swine flu and I play the man from Samaria
but instead now it’s going to be manuscripts I decree.

We’ll need duct tape to fasten a pencil to your pads
and I suggest you try creative non-fiction before poetry.
I heard “write what you know” over and over ad
infinitum, and you know so well how to pee on a tree.

Don’t worry about a thing; I’ll be your literary agent
and groove you a career as straight as a roto tiller.
You must write as richly as your most pungent scent
and the writer’s conferences will teach you to cut filler.

In no time, you’ll have the upper paw in all the contests
and spur a canine literary movement or even a school.
Write a bestseller on ball-chasing in Budapest
and follow that up with a manifesto on doggie drool.

Oxford or Yale would surely put you on the faculty
and Pet Smart might release that collar around my neck.
Glowing registrar reports will assure a tenure trajectory—
in doggie years of course, and kibble in place of check.

Don’t give me those Benji eyes, you furry little hack!
Wasn’t I right when I advised against eating peeling paint?
Telling you what to do ad nauseum is my bestest knack.
On Facebook we’ll even find you a German Patron Saint—

let’s call her, let’s say, something like Saint Anastasia,
and when you have writer’s block, she’ll be your council
trade you inspiration for your output of anesthesia
and when you bark, NO, she’ll reply, “Yo Vil, Yo Vil, Yo Vil!”




Note: As you can see, I had some silly fun with this one. Also I’ll confess I cheated on a few of the phrases and words, changing the form, the order, and even altering the word completely. Yet you should be able to find some semblance of each item Elsie gave me. I normally don’t rhyme in my “all my own” poetry, but the spontaneous challenges sometimes bring it out in me, usually for comic effect. You’ll have to let me know, Elsie, if this qualifies for that dessert!