(no subject)

[my_window_seat]

Once again short of time, I'm handing in an older piece for poetry class. I feel like I'm cheating a little bit, but it's better than handing in nothing at all. And the prof did say that as long as it hasn't ever been published anywhere else, it's still fair game, so I'm just going to go with that.

NOTE: This shouldn't be taken as a reflection on my housekeeping - this was written about a cat who doesn't live with me anymore (sniff!), and I don't, nor have I ever, just left wads of cat hair sitting around the house. Eeesh.

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The Art of Grooming

I used to polish candlesticks for peace and self-reflection
Until my cat taught me the art of grooming
I now spend hours with my nails raking furrows in her back
Our talons flexing and uncurling as I strip unneeded hair
And make untidy piles of dander in the ashtray

I take these wads of coarse and downy stuff
And roll them into balls between my palms
She watches, tense with feigned fury
Tightened muscles roped and reigned for quick release

She takes these balls and swats them mightily
She catches them on claw-tip; waves them frantically around
She plunges teeth in soft centers, tastes herself
She drops them gingerly and watches them for sudden moves

She smells, she fights, she tastes and chases self
She flings away and hunts again these tight-packed balls of self
At last, exhausted, eyes half closed
She then forgets this last remainder of her cast-off self
In favor of a sleep

She never seems to tire of each new game—
The sport of swatting at an old, discarded self

If there’s a lesson to be learned in all the fur
I’ve yet to find it
But the candlesticks grow further tarnished
And the floor is littered with the scatterings of self-play

(1993)

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Comments

[elsean.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's excellent!

The sport of swatting at an old, discarded self

I really like this line. Kitty Catharsis!

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

Hours of fun for the whole family!

[elegantdreams.livejournal.com]

have you noticed that more than once you have broguht candlesticks into various writings, they are one of the those characters that seem to always hover at the edge of your mind but they dont take center stage, as I recall, there is a reason for this, but I would have to look thorugh your journal to remember, and Im waaaay to tired, last time you talked about them as symbols of the past, they were sitting by your computer, maybe, danm if I cna remember, grrrrr, I hate it when my brain chews up info and wont spit it back out for me.

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

Um, maybe just because I like them a lot? Sad really, that I hardly have any of them anymore. I think because I don't really have anywhere to put them in my house. It's just never felt - right - somehow. Meh. If I can get even one scholarship in addition to my financial aid, I am moving. As in moving closer to campus. And I mean it this time.

And I think that this is the entry you were thinking of:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/word_whore/53491.html

[elegantdreams.livejournal.com]

yes, that is it, and also a peom that you read to me, I cannot remember for sure, but I think that there were candlesticks, and a sleepy clock that brushed minutes off of its face like cobwebs

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

Hum. I don't remember the poem. I wish I did, though - that sounds really neat!