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Cat Poetics

Posted on by littleREDelf

I think our cat is trying to communicate with us, but he is a fierce lover with a filthy mouth. Our fridge is covered in magnetic poetry. Nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and articles all crammed into a word salad. Xander, our sweet, special, nervous OCD Bengal cat likes to pull down scraps of red and white words while we cook or watch tv. It’s often just the word of the day, but he does occasionally get ambitious in the middle of the night and I wake up to a confettied sentence on the floor just begging for sense to be made out of it.

He can’t help that his assistive device / sometime Ouija board is a mix of two magnetic themed sets—the Romance edition, and the Sex edition. Plus a few random cat words like MEOW. So we get oddly accurate things like “MEOW babe” “pussy voice said milk” or experimental poetics like, “please spray the bright.” Sometimes, straight up fuck poems such as, “finger her paradise world” or simple nonsense like “ready my beach.”

But the first of September arrived bringing cooler rainy weather with it, and as I packed my breakfast and lunch for work, Xander scratched off an extremely apt poem:

summerover-shudderfluff

That night, I came home and lit candles early to fill the house with warm light and scent as I cooked and he delivered “candle dinner” in red, which was a bit eerie.

Today my mother had major abdominal surgery. We all texted and called and prayed and well-wished until later, I was relieved to hear her voice—groggy, but chuckling, telling me in small voice that she loved me. Wrung out with worry, I headed out to the garden at dusk for a late summer harvest of tomatoes. Xander meowed, fished three times, and softly commented, “empty our soul.”

family, friends, home, nature, poetry, technology, weather

go outside and listen

Posted on by littleREDelf

“I’m sad,” I tell her, looking for analog
in a world of constant digital connection.
“I know,” she said, “you used to write
great letters, too, and you know a lot of people,
but you just need your roots.”

“Go outside and listen,” my mother advises.

Outside, I see all the life looking for hands,
all the living things that need me back,
and I understand what they want—
flowers for vases, tomato vines withering
but weighted with so much pendulous red.
It’s all thirsty, even the sunflowers nod and
hang their heads.

The fires are burning still, more now every day
acres of smoke closer still than farther away.

It’s hard to see, so I listen.

Windchimes in a dusty breeze, paper crisp rose edges
and black spotted leaves. A dog barks, children scream
playing near dark, screeching brakes, and the Jade District
festival thick with voices and music, pounding echoes,
firework sparks.

War drums sound, apocalypse theater,
Taiko, large and loud. I reach for shears,
and go to ground.

I pull the small dandelion fluff of lettuce tops
into a silver kitchen bowl, swirl until the seeds release
the temple drums continue, the clouds go grey
the rusty gate opening screech call of a Scrub Jay
pecking black seeds from under the yellow bonnet,
the neighborhood, haunted.

The early dusk, a yellow-green cyclone sky,
wildfires make for softbox sunsets in the summertime,
the dried up lake beds reveal ancient forests,
the grass has all died, save for the clover.
We may need them when this is all over.

“Go outside and listen,” she said.
I don’t see any people,
but I hear them all.

FEATURED, home, humor

Junk Drawer

Posted on by littleREDelf

The inventory here says, I hang pictures and fix broken glass. I solder and glue gun, wrap twine and staple. I illuminate things, measure them, give them power. I can calculate, paint, and highlight. Nothing can come loose or get away—I’ve got screws and nails and velcro for days. Oh, a Kazoo and emergency chocolate! I have change to spare, and yes, I will put down some glitter glue on shirt or a stocking. Maybe it’s just a poorly kept mad woman’s toolbox, but I think we should rename the junk drawer to something more amazing like “utility treasures” or “arsenal of the imagination,” for everything I’m able to do.