From Under the Mat Where Sat the Cat

F
Extricate, but not too much,
unfaithful digger of concordances,
let be the whole tasty clutch of it, rhyme
of I’m, not, awake,
child,
bequeathing willow trees beside a stream.
Not only old ravines
but Euclid Avenue,
my first escalator (Hal-ease Department Store)
were woven in the mat where sat the cat.
I say Department, was a sexual story
because Mother’s store it was, her bailiwick,
father absent in a void called “Work.”
Precarious. Don’t try get it all in. Bailey’s
was another tasty store, such glitterglass.
And later learned that testicles was store,
alaya-vijnana.
O dark dirty Cleveland, the Viking Club, the mysteries!
All I want is loving you and blank-blank blank-blank blank-blank
It’s only unmentionable because there’s no end to chasing it
the tale of it and you and sustenance.
Hundreds are fleeing, but not hurricanes.
Violets, I always brought her wild violets in spring.
Breathless romanzas secret in the Flats.
Percolate the spiderwebs.
Not what you expected, eh?
I could bite you back, you furry thing, but you’d never understand.

30
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

The Fête by Charlotte Mew
Charlotte Mew
To-night again the moon’s white mat
Stretches across the dormitory floor
While outside, like an evil cat
The pion prowls down the dark corridor,
Planning, I know, to pounce on me, in spite
For getting leave to sleep in town last night.
But it was none of us who made that noise,
Only the old brown owl that hoots and flies
Read Poem
0
88
Rating:

As the Dead Prey Upon Us by Charles Olson
Charles Olson
As the dead prey upon us,
they are the dead in ourselves,
awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you,
disentangle the nets of being!

I pushed my car, it had been sitting so long unused.
I thought the tires looked as though they only needed air.
But suddenly the huge underbody was above me, and the rear tires
were masses of rubber and thread variously clinging together
Read Poem
0
86
Rating:

Home Burial by Robert Frost
Robert Frost
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see
From up there always—for I want to know.’
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’
Mounting until she cowered under him.
‘I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.’
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,
Read Poem
0
67
Rating:

The Key to the City by Anne Winters
Anne Winters
All middle age invisible to us, all age
passed close enough behind to seize our napehairs
and whisper in a voice all thatch and smoke
some village-elder warning, some rasped-out
Remember me . . . Mute and grey in her city
uniform (stitch-lettered JUVENILE), the matron
just pointed us to our lockers, and went out.
‘What an old bag!’ ‘Got a butt on you, honey?’ ‘Listen,
Read Poem
0
64
Rating:

from Each in a Place Apart by James McMichael
James McMichael
I know I’ll lose her.
One of us will decide. Linda will say she can’t
do this anymore or I’ll say I can’t. Confused
only about how long to stay, we’ll meet and close it up.
She won’t let me hold her. I won’t care that my
eyes still work, that I can lift myself past staring.
Nothing from her will reach me after that.
I’ll drive back to them, their low white T-shaped house
Read Poem
0
79
Rating:

I Wish I Want I Need by Gail Mazur
Gail Mazur
The black kitten cries at her bowl
meek meek and the gray one glowers
from the windowsill. My hand on the can
to serve them. First day of spring.
Yesterday I drove my little mother for hours
through wet snow. Her eightieth birthday.
What she wanted was that ride with me—
shopping, gossiping, mulling old grievances,
Read Poem
0
65
Rating:

A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters by June Jordan
June Jordan
A few years back and they told me Black
means a hole where other folks
got brain/it was like the cells in the heads
of Black children was out to every hour on the hour naps
Scientists called the phenomenon the Notorious
Jensen Lapse, remember?
Anyway I was thinking
about how to devise
Read Poem
0
59
Rating:

Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As if—forgive now—should you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Read Poem
0
111
Rating:

Wildflowers by Richard Howard
Richard Howard
for Joseph Cady

Camden, 1882 Is it raining, Mary, can you see?
Read Poem
0
101
Rating: