shaggy dog story in poetry

My favorite thing about Scooby Doo was
their steadfast debunking of supernatural hoaxes
much more possible than their own
TALKING DOG.

Aliens? Ghosts?
Those must be old amusement park owners in masks.
Those things can’t possibly be real,
just ask our TALKING DOG.

And not only that
a whole family of TALKING DOGS
a whole GENE LINE of TALKING DOGS
Scrappy-Doo and Scooby-Dum and all that
a veritable Secret of NIHM
of TALKING DOGS

But pirate ghosts? No.
Those must be just gold miners with a hologram projector.
Isn’t that right,
GENETICALLY ABHORRENT
TALKING DOG?

Every talking dog is
explicitly related to Scooby-Doo
remember, we never see a talking dog
who isn’t related to their talking dog

their
TALKING
DOG

so it’s not like we’re in some horrible alternate reality
where dogs are sapient and kept as pet-slaves
solving mysteries in the small towns of the American South
oh no, talking dogs are not a normal thing in their world
and yet to these kids
the idea of intelligent life existing somewhere in this vast universe
is a joke and do you know who agrees with them?
THEIR TALKING
DOG

My favorite thing about Scooby Doo is
pretending I could jump into the television
and rip the rubber mask off the dog
and it’s a perverted old man
who pretended to be a talking dog
so he could get to see Velma naked
and he would say to me
“AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO”
“IF NOT FOR THAT UNCONVENTIONALLY HANDSOME POET”
and I mean on a certain level
I wouldn’t even blame him
I guess she’s at least college age and
there’s something wonderful to be said for
nerdy women, of course of course

but there’s a thing these days
they call “consent” my dude
maybe she’d even say yes
Fred and Daph have their
own thing going on and
Shaggy’s libido has been
permanently killed by
his massive drug abuse
the poor girl might be
desperate for anything

Last updated February 26, 2023