Hogarth's Dog

This gentle pug did cock-a-leg

over cruelty and beauty, and in reversal

of the print, made left a right,

and right a left, it's tight-butted position,

it's face full with fond lippery, teases out

through analyses cynical

the spoils of senseless slaughter,

Here now hangs a criminal

Here now hangs a whore

Here now hangs an animal

instructions for sentimenality

come with the Thomas Crashaw

watery eyes, then he this pug,

like his fore-fathers, ugly as hell,

did cock-a-leg upon the creaky

architecture of this future

seen through an allusion

to canine muse, sneakily inserting an enema,

for thosewho care less for poetic drama

:thus beauty and cruelty in the final

analysis lined up in against

each other on the ten o'clock news.