You have the hysterical look of mutes
that roar through narrow straws.
I see in your yellow eyes – a Jules Verne winking moon.
Soon that ribbed pink cave will release
another flock of demented coots
hacked from the craw of an ancient macaw.
Soon the whip of your vocal squawks
will pluck my eyes from their trembling stalks.
Maine Coon, part Persian, part whiskery herring,
grimalkin mouser,
I love you not when you sing.
Verne goes to the movies, a flickering French theater
of painted malarkey, where mice threaten to Can-Can.
Buck Rodgers shoots rays of hyperbolic sound
from the open nozzle of your mouth.
The Grimalkin
I had a black cat with a white chest, a beautiful tabby that slept
every day on my sofa. I went on a week´s winter holiday, and left
it snoozing, there was a cat flap and it could get out and find food
for itself, usually by meowing outside peoples kitchens.
When I came back the mouser was still sleeping, I thought it was
the long sleep so I put the cat in a shoe box and put it on top of
the fire, a sort of pyre. Moggy jumped out of the box its tail afire,
through the flap fled and stuck its tail in a snow drift.
The malkin lives in the woods wishes it were a jaguar, kill things that
is of lesser size then itself, but it never comes near the houses.
Lustrous black hangs over pale skin
Gleaming green under deities sight
Wheeling toes transfer lanolin
Watchers skill shadows this neophyte
Who's damning dexterity draws in
The old woman watching weaving
Whispering advice to halt spokes
But fibrous boasts offend mountain
War horns sound an electric warning
Arachne's eyes roll with faster strokes
Athena whets sharp javelin
Circling pressure spills lymphocyte
An emerald eyed grimalkin
Issuing challenge instead of a fight
To save face in front of kin
Anxiously she begins fabricating
Charring wood, wisping smoke
Arachne remembers old sin
Clean fingers start recording
Twenty one episodes to provoke
Woven lust impregnates linen
Details capture birthright
Divine lashes flicker, flecking venin
Mortal legs levitate, threads snap and choke
Defiant victory from the coffin
Punished and reborn with aconite
To appease her guilt for relaxed reign
Arachne is transformed and hanging
Always spinning; a masterstroke
Sooty Grimalkin
with ears all in tatters
Stealthy Grimalkin
all paws, pitter patter
Sleeping Grimalkin
curled up by the fire
Dreaming Grimalkin
cream and fish his desire
Scheming Grimalkin
his yellow eyes narrow
Stalking Grimalkin
creeps up on a sparrow
Generous Grimalkin
brings in a mouse
Sullen Grimalkin
kicked out of the house
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