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Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal

7th March, 2005. 10:41 pm. Amazingly Bad Poetry Review - The Dogs Pay No Attention to TV

The Dogs Pay No Attention to TV
by Clifford; Kennett Square, PA

The dogs pay no attention to TV
Perhaps they know there is nothing to see.
They sleep through the gunfire and exploding cars
And pay no heed to well known stars.

If only my taste was as good as theirs
I would not plop my butt into all those chairs.
Watching Leno and Letterman holding forth
Wiith animal guests out of their lairs.
Holds no interest for my two pups,
What they see may not sum pixels up.

Our slow minds blur the dots we see
Into an image of fantasy.
But vision designed to detect rapid motion
May detect what is really there,
a flurry of dots causing no commotion.

So, rest easy my friends as you keep me warm

The real reason why they're not watching TV is because they're psychically planning his death. It's a lousy poem, but at least now I know how my TV works. I had been wondering about that and now its secrets have been revealed to me! It no longer controls me! I control IT! Plop is one of those words that should never be used in poetry -- not even when describing rain. I suppose I could grant a temporary "plop" license to someone like Allen Ginsburg writing one of his "must go bathe now"-inducing works -- but he's dead. "I would not plop my butt into all those chairs."--it's just not a pleasant image. I don't care if you're tremendously svelte in real life, we're still picturing Marlon Brando in his underwear watching "Tru Calling."

Clifford (a big red dog himself) seems to be asking "Why can't I be more like my dogs?". Well, you could turn off the TV. Your dogs are probably bored throughout the day but you don't see them turning on Montel or Barbara Wa-wa's Black Hole of Vapidness. It's bewildering to me that Clifford condemns his own bad habits and his bad taste but he makes no effort to make himself look good. He is either a lonely man with no self esteem -- or his dogs are controlling him and they insist on paint a positive picture of their lifestyle (when in actuality, they're the couch potatoes). For the love of pete, Clifford is watching Leno. At least make an allusion to chronic insomnia or the dial on your ancient TV being broken. I refuse to believe anyone watches Leno on purpose.

Clifford might as well be saying, "I would like to pay no attention to the boob tube, like my dogs do, but what can I do? After all, my TV has become sentient and it electrocutes me when I try to turn it off." Why should his dogs pay attention to the TV? Clifford theorizes that their brains don't process the image like we do. But what would happen if Clifford switched to the Bacon channel or the Chasing Bunnies channel or the Animated Covered Wagon Rolling Across the Kitchen Floor channel? Probably still nothing. (Mind you, all those channels exist nowadays). Until they invent Smell-O-Vision, dogs will look at TV as the thing that flashes and people look at it. Clifford could write a sequel, "My Cats Are Watching Too Much TV."

He should be glad the dogs aren't watching TV... if I had pet dogs, I wouldn't want them telling me they wanted to watch "The Bachelor" when I'm trying to get some work done. And before you know it, they've learned how to use the remote. Our brains (meaning human brains) may be working at only a fraction of our full potential, but we process everything at light speed compared to dogs. We may not be able to track scents over long distances, but we're not obsessed with the grossest of our bodily functions (most of us anyway). I wish I knew what kind of dogs these were. I'm not sure whether or not I should be picturing pugs with a perpetual expression of dumb confession or golden retrievers with a perpetual expression of dumb confusion. In the second stanza, it's like Clifford is doing a survey on his animals. "Day 36: they did not react again to 'Law & Order' or 'CSI.' Were not able to identify Marg Helgenberger or other well-known stars. Ruffy scratched himself when I noted that Gilbert Gottfried was guest-starring on 'CSI.' Am discouraged, but will soldier on." "Day 37: Jack Hanna on the Late Show. Ruffy and Conrad did not show any interest in the lemur, the flamingo, or the giant tortoise. Very disappointing day. Must finish poem about this."

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: C+
Professor Roy's AIM name: ProfessrRoy. I recently learned that my cat reacts when she hears a meow from the TV or computer.
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