To the Cat God:

I hear your impish chuckle in the birds,

(there goes a loon anointed, raving stark,)

and though I can but feign to hear the words,

I like to think I understand the lark.

In whistle, chitter, twitter, full of mirth,

do I discern the essence of your voice?

The fold of evening’s gown upon the earth,

I dress it up as you, and I rejoice.

I would not give this illness up for gold.

I’d miss the host of angels, sound and angles,

refracted through the sixth dimension’s fold

to trumpet and attend your purple tangles.

I look about, and you are all I find

within the broken prism of my mind.

From a March hare

I fill my mouth with words, for hunger, thirst,
and love. When whispers dance from lip to lip,
our rolling tongues competing to come first
to wit’s conclusion, letting manners slip,
I love you, when you throw the flue to speak
of what ignites your fire, stokes your soul,
what pumps your heat and pressure to its peak,
and, steaming, forces you to lose control!
Speak only of the topics that obsess,
that possess you. Spit fire or say no
word–none at all. Your beauty, I confess
won’t linger in my mind’s eye should you go.
When we’ve adjourned, I’ve carried what you’ve said,
those words with life enough to raise the dead!

Disarming us, you offered us your best

terrific friend we could call on the phone.

We ate him up, then asked you for the rest,

but you wrote Holden Caulfield all alone.

You hunkered in your Glass menagerie.

Our screams for help would never reach you then,

but how could you twist tourniquets for me

as blood gushed from your heart as from your pen?

I made your book a bandage for my head.

Our hearts were weak. Our arteries were sliced.

We had no choice; we lapped from where you bled

as if we drank the healing blood of Christ.

The phonies still don’t understand the fuss;

it’s naughty for a teenager to cuss.

Give me your poor, frustrated, over-schooled,

the ones you promised hard work makes “success,”

the trusting little lambs the bankers fooled

and offered at the altar of excess.

We came in hooded sweatshirts to the shore

of your secluded island made of gold,

degrees and aspirations by the score.

We offered work, and sadly we were told:

“We’ve had enough of work!” You spoke with tears.

“With garners full, we’ve chosen to retire.

We all have food and oil to last us years,

but we’ll collect a fee, should you expire,”

and then you told us it was our own fault;

we let our parents fill and lock your vault.

You crassly think the most unlikely ends

are those relying on another’s heart.

We fail to see that other’s faith depends

on fear of lack of faith on other’s part.

Why is it so outlandish to suspect

the other’s covert plot to see you smile?

You’d grant the self-same favor you reject!

In shoes you wore, we over-tread that mile!

We write each other’s key climactic scenes,

so spare belief for happ’ly-ended tales.

Invest in fairy dust and magic beans.

Trace stars with magic wands. When all else fails,

accept the best of my humanity!

You can’t object; you’d do what’s best for me!

For ev’ry stray and vagrant word I say

that falls so careless on a roving ear,

I might have one upon my lips to stay,

a steadfast, feal, and tender name held near.

For friend I would have, “Love,” and She is all.

To know Her is to fall upon Her grace.

She does not know offense. She comes to call

on strength and weakness, each one in its place.

Her fortitude observes no effort spent

in Her attempt to bandage ev’ry scrape

some call, “Naïve,” but rather should, “Hellbent,”

in saving naïve ape from selfsame ape.

“Money,” “Fame,” and “War”–I do not know them.

Her kindness is the object of the poem.

What is the part of me that bears my name?

Which piece admits our souls–our brains, our hearts?

A heart of flesh or metal is the same

that loves in summed reciprocating parts.

My heart is then my dynamo, my brain

the grinding axle gear that cranks my wheel.

I fear no ghost. I lack a will to feign.

My mechanisms act as though I feel.

I push against the thing that owns your name;

opposing equal force restores me back.

So then I mark my essence, yours the same,

in interplay of balanced strength and lack.

The one who equals me in pain and joy

can have me as their steadfast clockwork toy.

The sheep “make love” to worship, not for sport.

“Oh, God… Oh, God…” Oh, God! He hears you, now!

He busts as on the altar you contort.

I pray for him to gag the holy cow.

Some “fuck.” The goats would rend the temple walls.

“I’m bad! I’m naughty–beat me!” Though, what shame

is there in play, like children kicking balls?

The goats’ and sheep’s intents are all the same.

There is no stranger of the cosmic jokes,

that we should live and die and dream of love

that culminates in swift emphatic pokes,

a funny face, and cries to one above.

Let loose the cuffs, and lay aside the staff;

She moans, and wails, and cries so He might laugh.

The page is filled, the inky well runs deep,

the cup of vision overflows for want

of dreams to wrest the ghost from deathly sleep,

to animate the carcass–rigid, gaunt–

from eons passed in stillness, stiff and dry,

reposing on a vain and arid mound

and waiting for a reason for to cry,

to shake and make a mournful, rasping sound.

The fuel to be my pyre wants the same,

a spark to give my funeral a start,

a burning bit, an ember, to inflame

this tinderbox that is the living heart.

Each day I live, I die; no tear is shed.

I write my eulogies to wake the dead.

I gush; my river flows from heart to throat.

My whine is young and sweet to one who sips

but bitter blood to one who drinks to bloat.

I placed a single drop upon your lips.

You wanted me to overbrim your cup–

but you would not. You know not what I gave.

You want a carnal tongue to fill you up.

I want a word of love or two to save.

You say you don’t recall the night’s exchange,

but how could it be diff’rent in the morn

unless my hope for love was passing strange

or your affections passed their hour born?

For one night, drink can black out what we do.

It cannot blot the years I’ve cared for you.