Poem : Bloody Caesar

Bloody Caesar (The Theatre of Pompey)

Side streets mirror the edge of the theatre’s stage

Fragments of the old building jut out of basement walls

have become columns in buildings
old but half as old

On the spot where Caesar was killed
a cat sunbathes

Poem-A-Day #348 : Knife In Water

Knife In Water

The darkness of thought - knife in water

imagine that kind of jump

                                          where body can
                                vanish in liquid
I crave that kind of
going

Imagine me knifing the water each time I say goodbye -

I re-read the ending of The Anthropology of Water
and do not remember that the final image
is of a dying cat -
                              The cat is looking out from very far back in its eyes now, from a huge room where everything is running slowly away

                                                        - and then -
                                                                             The soul of a cat is mortal.

                                                                                                                          - and then -
                                                                                                                                               It does its best.

Think about Anne Carson's imagined dead and real dead - and then add self to that

A hacking cough that results in a claw-footed tub in your toilet

the words
                                               tangle knot
                                       find purchase to foot on - there
is beauty in the glass knife piercing your rib cage

What is best? -

The dying distance themselves from the living - not
because they are afraid of infecting us with their death
but because they may want to turn back

paths become dangerous backwards

Poem-A-Day #300 : On An Aging Cat

On An Aging Cat

He moves a little more careful
a sort of think-pause before settling

He stares into the sunlight
as it fills the living room with warm

Hungrier and restless
he is a shuffle about the house at night

He is drinking only from the bathtub
the blankets are never empty of him

Somehow he wants more lap
his claws less ready

Poem-A-Day #279 : History

History

The world as gold object
spins in a heavy space
it flakes - gives off green
rubs itself against your leg

Poem-A-Day #247 : Sartre Means Tailor

Sartre Means Tailor

The bag of a thing - it hangs like felt thickly and fort-like
          draw the chalk lines across the dark surface - crimp it in
the drawstrings will pull will shear - the cliff face of a scissor will slice

The internet sends endless photos of cats - of politics with cats
          politicians wrapped in cats - there are cats running for President
your one friend who likes dogs will have to be culled - blood let

Crimp the edges cleanly - find the matter in the matter
          discard - this pile of left overs is a heap of could have
it is the hair on the brush - the egg cracked for breakfast - blooms in November

There could be a burn along the rough edge - fingers working
          along the splitting fabrics the wools trying to resheep themselves
the sheep - for their part - care nothing of what was lost they are fine

There is no meaning here - the internet is a vast mirror in which
          we constantly ask who the fairest is and constantly find only others
a shrink-wrapped bar of chocolate tastes only if we can imagine instagrams of it

Let's not Luddite on this - crimp the edges - find the chalk lines
          eventually a jacket will appear - eventually it will fit form well enough
eventually it will be discarded for another slab of unform

Unform and unform this fine felt in lines of calcified thought
The internet has patterns for it - has plethora of them - has litte rboxes full

Poem-A-Day #87 : Tomorrow

Tomorrow

Tomorrow the book will be done
Tomorrow I will be handsome
Tomorrow the clothes will fit
Tomorrow the car will stop coughing
Tomorrow everyone will be younger
Tomorrow I will have kisses
Tomorrow the TV will say I love you
Tomorrow money will flow this direction
Tomorrow elections will not matter
Tomorrow the cat will learn a skill
Tomorrow sugar will be healthy
Tomorrow this will all be new
Tomorrow this will all begin again
Tomorrow the feet will know the direction
Tomorrow the world will still embrace me

Inspiration : Tout

Tout 9/26/12

You are dressed in your fall camouflage
are wood ducking the season

Yes. Yes you are.

While it is easy to see the basic idea behind this poem. The true inspiration came from my cat.

This is my cat:

Awwwww...

He likes to sit high up on bookshelves and stalk me. Sometimes he hides in boxes or drawers and jumps at me as I walk by.

He's a cat.

So I mashed hunting and my cat together with a creepy stalker vibe and some vague doppelgänger-ness.

high-hatting matching my gait

Also...doppelgängers are super creepy. Like really. Abraham Lincoln claimed to have a vision of one that Mary Todd Lincoln interpreted as him winning a second term but dying before the end of it. Other famous people reporting the phenomena:

      Percy Bysshe Shelly - Percy and his wife Mary Shelly supposedly met his double.

      John Donne - Saw his wife's double the night she miscarried.

      Johann Wolfgang Goethe - Saw himself riding horseback.

      George Tryon - His double walked through a party shortly after his ship sank in the Meditteranean.

Inspiration is a try at exploring my own work in a thoughtful way. A book report on me.

Supposition

Supposition 7/12

The cat will sleep all day and will twitch once every hour
The cat makes noises like groaning and his eyes flick REM
The cat pushes his legs against the chair and slides along the chair
The cat extends claws and then spreads his paws open

There is a whooshing sound in the fan and a sun up and down
There is the dust in the light and the one cat hair on your nose
There is a crawl of time
There is cool and not cool weather