This cartoon reprinted for S.R., my (equally) small friend. Okay, S.R., I admit you are a bit bigger than me but not by much!

Whilst you sleep
REM deep
I clean up
with open end of a cup
the dead baby rat.

Our cat
is bemused.
Why not eat it
if we choose?

She crouches.
She sniffs.
Did you forget
to refrigerate this?

I wince,
my nose i pinch.
I ready the cup,
oh, look up.

Spiders have laid their web
over the corpse.
They'll have to find another bed.

Never let it be said
you do all the housework
for I have been hunting
under the crawl space rafters.
I guess this is your wedding perk.

Sally walks her dog
black Lab tongue
already hanging in July's rising heat.
Strung across Brian's stair railing
a broken spider web
glimmers wit rainbow roads
once trod,
now abandoned.

We sit on stoops,
chat
of furnaces and photos.
Birds sing seeking mates.
A train calls out warning
as it passes through the City.

My cat
sits by the door,
eyes lazily squinting,
flicking her tail,
teasing leashed dogs, 
tracking pigeons' flight.
She jumps to
the top of the armchair,
stretches out.
It's nap time again.

I smile goodbye,
go back inside
for breakfast and tea
and
to write
this poem
for you.



7/14/21  8 a.m.

“The whole world

Unfurled before me,”

Adam sees.

NOTE: This haiku was inspired by https://interestingliterature.com/2021/07/words-that-rhyme-with-word-world

True story of my cat and her squirrel friend is now on my new Gaia Mouse YouTube channel.

Not Shroedinger’s cat

She was treated much better than that.

Denise saw a mouse in her home.

Did she run screaming?

Nope, went to a shelter and got a cat.

Now, she told that cat

No hugs, cuddles or petting

You have one job.

I expect you to do it well.

Catch those mice

Running around this house.

Cats will not obey

Any command that doesn’t suit them.

But that cat

Was one damn happy cat. 

She had a job she liked.

Faithfully moused,

playing with them to her heart’s content.

Denise didn’t mind as long as the mouse

Was dead in the end.

Even if, 

Occasionally,

she had to hit them dead with a hammer.

Denise moved from the city.

There were no more mice.

The cat was old,

Loved sleeping in the sun.

When death came

She wasn’t cuddled or fussed over or pet.

Without pity

She was taken for that shot of death.

As she drifted away

She dreamt of chasing mice

And her friend 

with a hammer.

July 2021

The “zero words” in the corner is due to making this sketch on Pages, primarily a writing app. I thought it appropriate here.

I’ve been playing around with abstraction and composition by using found and household objects. The feet added an unexpected element. Yes, I’m standing on my work table.

*Tenkan is a martial arts move whereby one moves to a position behind the opponent in order to gain control of the situation.

(part of the True Stories series)

awake before sunrise

i step outside the sanctuary

of my parents’ house to

a sky full of dark with

pale moon and

two single stars unclouded

by wishes of opal clouds,

air cool through my hair.

[Just found this in the intricate maze of my computer. Must have been written several years ago, before my father died.]