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 appropriated 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, indiscriminate.

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._