BIBBLES

BIBBLES
Little black dog in New Mexico,
Little black snub-nosed bitch with a shoved-out jaw
And a wrinkled reproachful look;
Little black female pup, sort of French bull, they say,
With bits of brindle coming through, like rust, to show
   you’re not pure;
Not pure, Bibbles,
Bubsey, bat-eared dog;
Not black enough!

First live thing I’ve “owned” since the lop-eared rabbits
   when I was a lad,
And those over-prolific white mice, and Adolf, and Rex
   whom I didn’t own.
And even now, Bibbles, little Ma’am, it’s you who appro —
   priated me, not I you.
As Benjamin Franklin appropriated Providence to his
   purposes.

Oh Bibbles, black little bitch
I’d never have let you appropriate me, had I known.
I never dreamed, till now, of the awful time the Lord must
   have, “owning” humanity.
Especially democratic live-by-love humanity.

Oh Bibbles, oh Pips, oh Pipsey
You little black love-bird!

Don’t you love everybody!
Just everybody.
You love ‘em all.
Believe in the One Identity, don’t you,
You little Walt-Whitmanesque bitch?

First time I lost you in Taos plaza,
And found you after endless chasing,
Came upon you prancing round the corner in exuberant,
   bibbling affection
After the black-green skirts of a yellow-green old Mexican
   woman
Who hated you, and kept looking round at you and cursing
   you in a mutter,
While you pranced and bounced with love of her, you
   indiscriminating animal,
All your wrinkled miserere Chinese black little face
   beaming
And your black little body bouncing and wriggling
With indiscriminate love, Bibbles;
I had a moment’s pure detestation of you.

As I rushed like an idiot round the corner after you
Yelling: Pips! Pips! Bibbles!

I’ve had moments of hatred of you since,
Loving everybody!
“To you, whoever you are, with endless embrace!” —
That’s you, Pipsey,
With your imbecile bit of a tail in a love-flutter.
You omnipip.

Not that you’re merely a softy, oh dear me no.
You know which side your bread is buttered.
You don’t care a rap for anybody.
But you love lying warm between warm human thighs,
   indiscriminate,
And you love to make somebody love you, indiscriminate,
You love to lap up affection, to wallow in it,
And then turn tail to the next comer, for a new dollop.

And start prancing and licking and cuddling again, indis —
   criminate.

Oh yes, I know your little game.

Yet you’re so nice,
So quick, like a little black dragon.
So fierce, when the coyotes howl, barking like a whole
   little lion, and rumbling,
And starting forward in the dusk, with your little black fur
   all bristling like plush
Against those coyotes, who would swallow you like an oyster.

And in the morning, when the bedroom door is opened,
Rushing in like a little black whirlwind, leaping straight as
   an arrow on the bed at the pillow
And turning the day suddenly into a black tornado of
  joie de vivre, Chinese dragon.

So funny
Lobbing wildly through deep snow like a rabbit,
Hurtling like a black ball through the snow,
Champing it, tossing a mouthful,
Little black spot in the landscape!

So absurd
Pelting behind on the dusty trail when the horse sets off
   home at a gallop:
Left in the dust behind like a dust-ball tearing along
Coming up on fierce little legs, tearing fast to catch up, a
   real little dust-pig, ears almost blown away,
And black eyes bulging bright in a dust-mask
Chinese-dragon-wrinkled, with a pink mouth grinning, under
   jaw shoved out
And white teeth showing in your dragon-grin as you race,
   you split-face,
Like a trundling projectile swiftly whirling up,
Cocking your eyes at me as you come alongside, to see if
   I’m I on the horse,
And panting with that split grin,
All your game little body dust-smooth like a little pig,
   poor Pips.

Plenty of game old spirit in you, Bibbles.
Plenty of game old spunk, little bitch.

How you hate being brushed with the boot-brush, to brush
   all that dust out of your wrinkled face.
Don’t you?
How you hate being made to look undignified. Ma’am;
How you hate being laughed at, Miss Superb!

Blackberry face!

Plenty of conceit in you.
Unblemished belief in your own perfection
And utter lovableness, you ugly-mug;
Chinese puzzle-face,
Wrinkled underhung physiog that looks as if it had done
   with everything,
Through with everything.

Instead of which you sit there and roll your head like a
   canary
And show a tiny bunch of white teeth in your underhung
   blackness,
Self-conscious little bitch,
Aiming again at being loved.

Let the merest scallywag come to the door and you leap
   your very dearest-love at him,
As if now, at last, here was the one you finally loved,
Finally loved;
And even the dirtiest scallywag is taken in,
Thinking: This dog sure has taken a fancy to me.

You miserable little bitch of love-tricks,
I know your game.

Me or the Mexican who comes to chop wood
All the same,
All humanity is jam to you.

Everybody so dear, and yourself so ultra-beloved
That you have to run out at last and eat filth,
Gobble up filth, you horror, swallow utter abomination and
   fresh-dropped dung.

You stinker.
You worse than a carrion-crow.
Reeking dung-mouth.
You love-bird.

Reject nothing, sings Walt Whitman.
So you, you go out at last and eat the unmentionable,
In your appetite for affection.

And then you run in to vomit it in my house!
I get my love back.
And I have to clean up after you, filth which even blind
   Nature rejects
From the pit of your stomach;
But you, you snout-face, you reject nothing, you merge so
   much in love
You must eat even that.

Then when I dust you a bit with a juniper twig
You run straight away to live with somebody else,
Fawn before them, and love them as if they were the ones
   you had really loved all along.
And they’re taken in.
They feel quite tender over you, till you play the same trick
   on them, dirty bitch.

Fidelity! Loyalty! Attachment!
Oh, these are abstractions to your nasty little belly.
You must always be a-waggle with LOVE.
Such a waggle of love you can hardly distinguish one human
   from another.
You love one after another, on one condition, that each
   one loves you most.
Democratic little bull-bitch, dirt-eating little swine.

But now, my lass, you’ve got your Nemesis on your track,
Now you’ve come sex-alive, and the great ranch-dogs are all
   after you.
They’re after what they can get, and don’t you turn tail!
You loved ‘em all so much before, didn’t you, loved ‘em
   indiscriminate.
You don’t love ‘em now.
They want something of you, so you squeak and come
   pelting indoors.

Come pelting to me, now the other folk have found you out,
   and the dogs are after you.
Oh yes, you’re found out. I heard them kick you out of the
   ranch house.
Get out, you little, soft fool!!

And didn’t you turn your eyes up at me then?
And didn’t you cringe on the floor like any inkspot!
And crawl away like a black snail!
And doesn’t everybody loathe you then!
And aren’t your feelings violated, you high bred little love —
   bitch!

For you’re sensitive,
In many ways very finely bred.
But bred in conceit that the world is all for love
Of you, my bitch: till you get so far you eat filth.
Fool, in spite of your pretty ways, and quaint, know all,
   wrinkled old aunty’s face.

So now, what with great Airedale dogs,
And a kick or two,
And a few vomiting bouts,
And a juniper switch,
You look at me for discrimination, don’t you?
Look up at me with misgiving in your bulging eyes,
And fear in the smoky whites of your eyes, you nigger;
And you’re puzzled,
You think you’d better mind your P’s and Q’s for a bit.
Your sensitive love-pride being all hurt.

All right, my little bitch.
You learn loyalty rather than loving,
And I’ll protect you.

                              Lobo.