A Dog Named Bodhisattva

Lyrics

There's a big dog running for all his worth So fast his feet don't seem to touch the Earth And his name is Bodhisattva And he's got four legs And Bodhi lives in an area of Oakland, California popular With lesbians and democrats Democratic lesbians flood the coffee shops and the bars Republican lesbians live elsewhere, like Mars And Bodhisattva runs like a happy fool scaring the girls At the corner public school who cry "Oh my G-d, it's a dog! I hate dogs" but who cried the day Bodhisattva almost died Struck by some idiot with a pickup truck Bodhi recovered except for one leg in the front which atrophied So if you asked him to beg he'd sit and he'd offer up the leg That didn't work as if to say "Here Please take this from me, it hurts." But his owner didn't know that that's what he was doing Until one night he found Bodhisattva chewing On the withered limb in the living room alone Drunk on the taste of his own blood, chewing his arm Down to the bone as though through pain simply trying To prove it still existed or maybe just to remove it He's a big dog running for all his worth So fast his feet don't seem to touch the Earth And his name is Bodhisattva And he's got three legs That's right they took him to the vet They have the leg chopped off, cremated and kept In an urn aloft on the mantle piece over the fireplace So whenever Bodhisattva came near That place you couldn't see it but he'd sit And he'd beg offering up his missing limb To the ashes of his missing leg And just so you know when Bodhisattva peed He still peed like a boy dog There was no need to sort of squat like a girl dog In the middle of the street He would lift up his leg and he would rest it on a tree Or the hydrant, or the side of a picnic table He'd make 3 points of contact and therefore stay stable He'd look at the girl dog, like he's going to say "What are you looking at, bitch?" And he still scared the girls at the corner Public school, a three-legged dog being scarier As a general rule than the regular four-legged kind More extreme "Oh my G-d, it's a three-legged dog!" They would scream and so it went as many years passed Bodhisattva running fast past the houses of the lesbians And the democrats who in general favor smaller dogs and cats Until there came a day When Bodhisattva couldn't go outside and soon After came the day when Bodhisattva died And his owner had him cremated But then to ease his soul again he added the ashes Of the missing leg to make Bodhisattva whole again The people of Oakland have seen strange sights It's a ghostly figure late at night It's a big dog running for all his worth So fast his feet don't seem to touch the Earth And his name is Bodhisattva and he's got four legs again