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.]
gaia mouse 