Watercolors of Fancy Dogs

Even in the mind the advertisements
are louder than the main event
neither thinking nor being (oh well)

Still, God’s greatest attribute
is a tragic lack of personality
against an oppressive fluorescence of being
(not mine
but of everyone else
that I hold in my hand
I mean their hand
God’s hand)

I sit folding and unfolding
my hunting knife, watching sports
like a low-level henchman
I change the channel
to Mirror World
a show based on all of us
at once

In the next scene the hero will easily dispatch me
into an embarrassment of spirit

If you want to take silly pills
you can totally do that
You can also wear your enemy’s clothes
and file a report about your feelings
but I am already dead enough

You can shove it into the paper hole
that you’ve made with your paper knife

You can wait on a response in the manner of oysters

You can learn how to paint watercolors of fancy dogs
A series of broom-like things on red pillows

I think about how every day I drive past
the sign that reads HOW CAN WE PRAY FOR YOU?
and how it makes me feel power in a way
I once thought only attainable
through gun ownership
or flag burning

I imagine a Pekingese coming in from the storm

A French bulldog next to a smoldering ash tray

A shih-tzu wearing the clothes of its enemy
screaming its head off
as if that ever changed anything

A Pomeranian smoking a cigarette in church

The dog (all dogs) saying “I am going to kick your ass”
I have seen it in a recurring dream
I am going to kick your ass
Has someone prayed for me?
I am going to kick their ass
Yes, someone has prayed for me
I am going to kick their ass

I Want to Be Your Friend

The part of me
that would have once been your enemy
now ceases to be

Even its children now live in my stomach
where I feed them my bad thoughts

I grow tired of the wind always blowing
around me and not through

There should be an emergency hotline
for when you can’t remember the difference
between anticipation and regret

The children are beautiful even when you
can only see their horrible futures

I can feel it. Everything I know
cross-tangential to the cross
you’ve erected for yourself
in your mind

The neighbors yell as I yell
at the ways our lives have been
overshadowed by the joy
that we feel for everyone else
in the same burning building
in the same spiritual
hand-me-downs
that we’ve soaked
in a chainsaw’s
two-stroke oil

Anydangway,
I think we should hang out  



Daniel Bailey is the author of several books of poetry, most recently A Better Word for the World (Apocalypse Party) and Gather Me (Scrambler Books). He lives in Athens, Georgia.

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