A Man and His Cat
“Ireland would be a grand place to be dead,” I say,
just thinking about it. That’s all.
Am I mulling a past wrong or a deluded moment, or a melancholy?
And as I pour some time into quiet, the guards announce him,
like a ghost that sprawls the battlements.
“There is such a comraderie in the graveyards;
all of the McCorkles and the O’Gradys munched together
beneath the lush emerald sod.
Everyone looking as if they belonged:
eccentrics, alcoholics, and the village lout.
Some children, of course, taken by the typhus or diptheria;
wives, young or old; husbands, good and bad.
They all looked so chummy in the earth.”
Sometimes Sammie and I both just stare,
as if in face paint and Hamlet
– as if before an emptied platter –
watching the grease and gravy of civilization harden slowly.
Just as a poet will reminisce by a still metaphor,
judging the beauty of its fit, feel its radiating power…
just as Hamlet was mesmerized by dark, brutal Denmark…
Sammie dissolves into the depths of my lap
like a lump of sugar will dissolve itself in tea.
And as I stir the soup of silent reflection,
Sammie and I spend an inordinate amount of time simmering.
Sammie and I are hard at work prepping a kind of stock
where Sammie is a clear broth,
while I am more like a lump in gravy.
– by Carl Nelson
April 27, 2010 at 9:12 pm04 |
Nice poem!!
September 12, 2010 at 9:12 am09 |
I had a cat named Spam, I called him Spammie. He died a tragic death – poisoned by something he found outside and ate.
I really love these parts:
“Sammie dissolves into the depths of my lap
like a lump of sugar will dissolve itself in tea.
And as I stir the soup of silent reflection,
…
where Sammie is a clear broth,
while I am more like a lump in gravy. “
September 12, 2010 at 9:12 pm09 |
Thank you, Rita! Our Sammie is still alive and since this poem was written, shares the stage with our dachshund, Max (Noodle).