The Church of the Holy Bitch Spore

My dog likes to think of himself as my Savior, and his eye is as dark as the dinosaur's eye on the day of the Comet, when he stands in front of me                                  and speaks. "There are poems in the paddock waiting to be busted", he whines...  The big stallion snorting and stomping...the delicate mare on clattering hooves...the long-legged colt with the joke in his eye... Away!  Let us hie to the pungent wood full of arrogant beast                                  and bird!" "But the beds aren't made", I mule.  "The Man hovers, a thundercloud of neglect. Let's hang in this back-water Sybaris, my friend, and fester pleasantly, feet up, the river of time rushing by without our flimsy dam of effort.                                "Let's watch TV." "No!" he cries, and I see his religeous fervor rise.  Waving his incense pot and trailing his robes, the priest of the Holy Bitch Spore is                            staring me down.                                Of course, I do not disparage his intent.  I am no different.  I, too, chase down the fox run of the quivering prey, be it ever so human and fiscal, for the whisper of promise.  So I harken to this citizen brother of our democracy of woman and dog, where all keys turn in the lock, though few open the                                 great iron gate. Look at him standing there as cocky as a jay bird on an old lady's clothesline - At birth, he woke up, and found his will flaming in the DNA of a chihuahua, and seemed destined to scratch fleas, lift his leg at trees, love voraciously, and sleep a lot --God setting a profound Period at the end of his potential.  - But, wouldn't you know, he picked up English, Psychology and Philosophy, just like that! "Knowledge is NOT a dangerous thing", he says, "knowledge is dog biscuits." Alas, he has turned into a tedious bore with an addiction to film-noire stories in the grasses, and boundaries,                                   always boundaries... "Allah be dammed," he says, "let's go for a walk."  Grumbling, I put on my muck-a-luks, but  willing to believe that I am missing some stunning obscurity under the fur, and so allow his                                   dog                                   ma. Beady of eye, and stiff of tail, he teaches, "It is not the horses in the paddock that matter.  No. It is the horses on the plain, fleeing on a gust of God, ears perked toward the hum at the center of time.                     They are the horses that matter." So, out we go with our lariat eyes to hunt them down in the city park, two searchers on the road to Answer, one                                retarded. Written January 9th, 2002 © on Jan 09 2002 12:05 PM PST, Carole Dudley   0 • 14