LI
Le Chat
i.
In my cerebellum who says I’m a walker?
Aint it the queen of someone’s apartment? Apparently
One beautiful cat, a resident of Fort Dix eats at eight charm school
Or when a small meow dribbles out you can hear a wall being painted.
Aint it so in the woods the forest at least he’s lightfooted eats quietly
But what a voice box a supple easy-chair or ground coffee.
She is always reaching up at eight o’clock searching professionally among houseplants.
Sailor, it’s the singing her charms at eight o’clock who says believe me
That voice box opens locked oysters at eight, fills hollow trunks
In my fondness the most the tiniest broken cup
I fill again. Why does she come into a room skipping, calling me a broken cup
At eight o’clock, her voice fills an ordinary hemlock.
She sleeps through the local train the worst of the evening’s maulers
At eight continues to sleep through all the stations. The cups exit
& pour directly the longest phrases.
She naps beneath the swollen depots
At nine he steps out of the house arching his back, opening more than
The pastor’s dogs, for example, make their way over to the whorehouse
At eight o’clock. If we ask Blue to roll all mention
Of your singing into her then shiver on the ironing board
Will this the voice-box roll in, twittering mysteries?
A cat in conference out by the fountain, cat mumbling in the dining car
What door on the east opens to bring you silver
Down below or the words appear and vanish banging against nothing, only porters?
ii.
Dese yer furr-balls, yer blondies yer brunettes
Somadem’ll piss right in yer smokestack so to see soft smokes and only one evening
I et a furr-ball soaked in formaldehyde, jus so’s I could say I’d had.
First it goes down caressin’ly. Soon yer hungry fer another one.
Dis is how families of lisping gatos
Make bad errors in de eyes of de president: In sickness he envisions a tower
And horns blowin’ away all his options like de hairs on a keemo patient’s head. “Son, ah’m on fire” he says.
Could it be he peed in his own vegetable garden? Did he swallow a chinese meowler?
When I see dem yelluh, green, well-read cats dat is my heart’s aim
I try to run dem over with a golf cart.
Dat way when I back up, dey’re much quieter
An’ I don’ have to keep my guard up against a maimin’.
I can see my stars falling like a ton of cement:
De furr of a purring white feline
Spreadin’ out like chlorine gas in de air over a black poker table.
My feet are sunk in it, and ah’m sinking.