Just dress up!

"Now look, the practical, the sensible
solution is to wear a fantasia."
Pink Dog

Irony is very prevalent in the poem; the speaker, through an apostrophe to a dog, points out the discrepancy between the appearance of Rio de Janeiro and the reality. It appears that Rio de Janeiro is a pleasant, happy place where nothing unpleasant is seen. In reality, there are many beggars and down-trodden people in the city. The reader, through his poem to the dog, points out that there are these sad, desperate people in the city, but that they are simply ignored. The irony of the people celebrating in the streets while people are starving makes their treatment of the beggars all the more horrific. The fact that the poem ryhmes also shows an attempt to make the matter light-hearted, just as the people of Rio de Janeiro do. The suggestion of putting the dog in the costume also attempts to do the same thing. The absurdity of dressing up a dog seems downplayed when compared with the idea of throwing beggars in tidal rivers. Rio de Janeiro doesn't seem like a pleasant place to be poor (are there any pleasant places to be poor? doubtful.)