The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: cat

  • Still Bird

    Still from the sill the cat peers
    windowed in at the flightless
    bird atop the grape pergola.

    The cat flies through the night
    but this bird won’t spread wings
    not that we’ve ever seen.

    Patient the bird still sits until
    asked to fill out a form with pen
    questions on feathers and hymns

    and such: are you a sole
    bird? how high do you fly?
    are you a kind bird? what kind?

    In what direction points
    your beak when at odds
    with others you yearn

    for the sea and sing
    a single note of myst
    a story that obscures

    your spurt in a torment
    a torrent of thickel
    breathfull agog gast?

  • Me and Midnight

    I talk to myself
    I’ve not much to say
    I talk to myself
    just like to say hey.

    I talk to myself
    and oh by the way
    I put in a good
    word for you.

    When I’m out on the road behind the wheel
    I talk to myself and away I peel
    When standing in line at the DMV
    I talk to myself as if I believed.

    All around town as I walk down the street
    I talk to myself as I meet and greet
    After midnight and I’m awake in bed
    I talk to myself in the back of my head.

    Midnight is my cat a Persian Blue
    she hangs out late shooting pool
    down on the corner she curls the poles
    finally comes home up the back ladder
    looking for a hot cup of black coffee.

    Midnight drinks coffee all night long
    plays guitar and sings nine minute songs
    If you’ve never seen a cat play and sing
    come on up my back stoop after midnight.

    And while Midnight plays guitar and sings
    her songs I talk to myself all night long
    I’ve not much to say but hey I say
    I talk to myself and satisfy the blues.

  • The Cat’s Meough

    The cat comes quietly a Sunday morning
    blue eyes lightly freckled cheeks glossy
    smooth silver fur tasselling corn down
    lips oysters on the half shell half open
    legs the dance of life waiting to erupt
    on the private stage of her boudoir.

    She walks in weird beauty this cat
    on two legs with patience galore
    knows full well her lustrous sheen
    when seen in the crackling of old
    magazines etiolates the cold celery
    stalks flowering in the veggie garden.

    For a cymbal cup of truth and trust
    and what good has it ever done
    her to have even one man shun
    while another calls her gorgeous
    rather have the cat in your lap
    purring your fingers thru her pelt.

  • Out of Season

    Barely visible
    the cat acting
    like a tourist
    out of season.

    Breeze so soft
    blow & rain shifts
    the other way
    out of season.

    In the grass melan
    choly whose happy
    sound the birds
    squirrels

    coyotes laired
    late in the park
    talk in their sleep
    out of season.

    This too out
    all up to snuff
    toffee nosed
    pretension

    a pretend friend
    bends to expose
    truth its own pretense
    out of season.