Tag: Poetry
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The Old Woman With No Cat
Tuesday, Explained by a Cat The cat motions the old womanto the armchair with one deliberate paw. “Sit.We need to talk …about Tuesday.” She sits.He leaps onto the armrest,tail wrapped around his feet like a professor’s robe. “Tuesday,” he begins,“is not a day.It is a concept.A flawed concept. Exhibit A: Monday has purpose.It is universally…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Crow’s Supremacy(Or: A Feline Crisis of Gravity) The cat is stretched in a sunbeam,belly exposed,dignity intact,one eye fixed on the bare winter treewhere the crow stands.Stands!On a twig no thicker than a whisker,rocking slightly,as if gravity were a suggestionit had politely declined. “How,” the cat breathes,“can that bird do that?Stand on a twig?A twig,…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Fence Treaty(Or: A Headbutt Heard in New Zealand) The cat sits on the fence post,tail like a sceptre,looking down at Crymych,the Cane Corso,the Italian mastiff,the dog who digs holesand aspires to New Zealand. The cat clears its throat. “Tell you what,” he says,in the tone of a kingoffering a peasant a crumb,“I’ll stay on…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Weatherman Exposed(A Feline Inquiry into Atmospheric Fraud) The cat sits before the telly,tail curled like suspicionas a man in a nice jacket points at a mapcovered in swirls and damp-looking arrows. “This man,” the cat begins,“calls himself a weatherman.Yet the rain continues.The wind howls like cousin Ralph,and my patio is wet.” The Old Woman…
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0407: Violet’s Phraseology
A Persistent Syllable not overnight,not immediate,gradual,like a shadow’s slow wrap around a flagpole,like the tap’s persistent syllablecounting out moments. No more today, she says,and closes her book,as if a page holds a boundaryagainst the drip,the drift,the soft unravelof sight. Would you mind, love,chopping the onions?I don’t thinkI should. All the words we hear.All the sounds…
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3006: The Liturgy
Liturgy for His Return, Cagnes-sur-Mer (Summer 1842 — Where the road remembers him) I. The Hill That Has Grown SteeperI found the hill steeper than I remembered,or else I had brought backless of myself than I meant to. This is what a year does.This is what the navy does.This is what it meansto be carried…
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2906: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Year of His Absence(Cagnes-sur-Mer, Winter 1842 — Waiting Becomes a Way of Life) I. The Question That Never Leaves Where is Felreil? Not a question of geography.Not a question of distance.A question of existence:whether the world still holds him,whether the shadows have released him,whether he is still stridingin his English-blackened bootsthrough streets…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Great Digging Mystery(Or: A Cane Corso’s Underground Ambitions) The cat sits on the fence post,high, safe,watching Crymych,the Italian mastiff with the Welsh name,dig a hole in his garden.Deep.Determined.Earth flying like brown bag confetti. The Old Woman appears with her tea.“What’s he doing?” The cat doesn’t look away.“That, Old Woman,is the question of the hour.Is…
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2706: dVerse Ars Poetica
Ars Poetica: The Yew This is a tree.But this is not about the tree,and it’s not about that summer,or the forest behind our house,or the Japanese maplethat Dad naileda birdhouse on. Nails.Crucified.Like Jesus. I called itthe Jesus Treeafter that. And it’s not aboutthe huckleberriesI ate before chasingsomething. Something — I can’t recall what. Always runningbeneath…
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2206: The Liturgy
Liturgy for a Long Absence — Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1836 – 1841 Where Waiting Is Believing I. The Winter That SettledWinter settled into the stone cottagelike a tenant who refuses to leave.The vines are bare,brittle,skeletal.Their fingers scratching at the skyand demanding warmththe season refuses to give. Even the small angelic statuesin the garden grimace at the cold,their…
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