Book of Matches and Phone Number
If you put a
book of matches and
your phone number on a
slip of
cardboard (lined and sickly yellow) on
your mantelshelf in relation to
each other they’ll
mull over the
best way to
stop forever the
fierce growl of
animals. And too
butcher glove stench
will go.
There was no room on the page
for such good news to be told;
nor room between the lines
for superscripts to be seen.
There was no room on the card
for announcing God's greeting;
nor room on the mantelshelf
for greener peace to be viewed.
So the angel passed on by
now looking for space among
paper waste for recycling;
right there delivering anew.
And is there room in my day
to open myself to God?
room to see his gifts afresh,
lest I should throw them away?
To be left alone
to be a cat
a porcelain memento on the mantelshelf
unnoticed un-thought-of even un-heeded
till a hand accidentally stretches
to caress the China paw of a line
all tucked in
out of a Federer need to be willingly unobtrusive
knowing the place of the homely cat
that’s fed as a pet
for the well-being of the spectator
in polite chaste drawing-room court
To take him à rebrousse-poil
and the pretty picture is shattered
canine claws unfurl drawn in offence
the conquering hargne of a Djokovic
the pounce leap and tumble
on the millimetre of the angular line
of brazen self-righteous discomfort
and desire becomes a clay cat
baking in the womb of the mantelpiece
under a creaking crumbling lintel
Revised from a 1986 poem : « Cat on the Mantelshelf »
© T.Wignesan 1986/2012
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