deepundergroundpoetry.com
dog
my father used to joke
that if you lock your wife and a dog
together in the downstairs cupboard
and only let them out after several hours
only the dog will be pleased to see you
and it occurs to me that a lot of his jokes
were about how ugly stupid fat
skinny slutty prudish stuck-up worse
the opposite sex supposedly were
like when he was told that
my stepmother’s friend had been held
at knifepoint and raped
and so she was shy around men
so he looked at her approaching down
the street and said that she’s
too ugly to be raped
(and when I tried to explain
that some women make themselves ugly
to cope with sexual assault
and feel as though they’re not targets
he just chuckled and disagreed)
but you can’t stay mad at your father
or at least I can’t sometimes
because in the end for all his jokes
two failed marriages later
he was always at last the punchline
that if you lock your wife and a dog
together in the downstairs cupboard
and only let them out after several hours
only the dog will be pleased to see you
and it occurs to me that a lot of his jokes
were about how ugly stupid fat
skinny slutty prudish stuck-up worse
the opposite sex supposedly were
like when he was told that
my stepmother’s friend had been held
at knifepoint and raped
and so she was shy around men
so he looked at her approaching down
the street and said that she’s
too ugly to be raped
(and when I tried to explain
that some women make themselves ugly
to cope with sexual assault
and feel as though they’re not targets
he just chuckled and disagreed)
but you can’t stay mad at your father
or at least I can’t sometimes
because in the end for all his jokes
two failed marriages later
he was always at last the punchline
Published 5th Aug 2022
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The author encourages honest critique.
5th Aug 2022 1:11am
5th Aug 2022 1:28am
To this day there is an american member of congress GOP who holds the same belief that some women are toooooooo ugly to get raped.
Anonymous
5th Aug 2022 6:24am
The poem doesn't address the issue of which came first: men who made jokes at the expense of women, or female privilege: when the Titanic goes down, who goes in the lifeboat first? In genocide, who's raped, instead of killed? Which sex is determined to have innate value from birth (because eggs), versus the sex whose members all had to develop and demonstrate value, through the cultivation of skills (fighting, hunting, providing, etc.)?
For many reasons I don't need to go into here (not the one listed above), such jokes don't particularly bother me.
Yet the last line, regarding someone to whom the speaker owns his very life, and possibly much more quantifiable things, is uncharitable, and in light of what has come before, morally unjustified.
Of course, as Wiliam Munny said to the Schofield Kid in "Unforgiven":
The Kid: Well, I guess he had it comin'.
Munny: Kid, we've all got it comin'.
Food for thought.
And enjoyed the thinking.
For many reasons I don't need to go into here (not the one listed above), such jokes don't particularly bother me.
Yet the last line, regarding someone to whom the speaker owns his very life, and possibly much more quantifiable things, is uncharitable, and in light of what has come before, morally unjustified.
Of course, as Wiliam Munny said to the Schofield Kid in "Unforgiven":
The Kid: Well, I guess he had it comin'.
Munny: Kid, we've all got it comin'.
Food for thought.
And enjoyed the thinking.
5th Aug 2022 9:09am
Thank you for your comment, Mark. I wasn’t really trying to make any sort of political/cultural/whatever point, and from my perspective the last line is tragic for the father more than mocking of him. That’s just my perspective though, and yours is certainly intriguing...
Wasn’t it Wilde? ‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.’ The fact that your poems raises philosophical questions is, in itself, enough. With the added caveat: in my humble opinion.
You capture the visceral odour of adolescent troubling breath and the opinions we encounter. My Dad was the kindest and gentlest of men, but he wasn’t adverse to the odd spit of bigotry. Enjoyed.
You capture the visceral odour of adolescent troubling breath and the opinions we encounter. My Dad was the kindest and gentlest of men, but he wasn’t adverse to the odd spit of bigotry. Enjoyed.
5th Aug 2022 1:19pm
Thank you, Rob, and I agree completely with Wilde. Who also said that all bad poetry is sincere. Funnily enough, however, he was ultimately a better playwright than poet.
5th Aug 2022 5:03pm
Yip. De Profundis is his most brilliant & beautiful moment. Had misfortune of watching an am-dram production of Salome. I was close to jumping on the wobbly stage and cutting off John the Baptist's head myself! So dire, it was actually 90 mins of pure joy.
