I have written before about the amazing wow-I-do-get-this feeling I got when I discovered a kindred spirit in Christopher Smart, the slightly insane 18th century poem who was a public pray-er, and who also wrote the Psalmesque My Cat, Jeoffrey, in praise of his only friend in confinement, his cat. I discovered Smart in graduate school, and I liked him very much, as he made the intense and overwhelming world of graduate school, brilliant professors and 18th century literature something human and doable for me.
I also discovered Charles Bukowski in graduate school. Him, I liked not so much (fictionwise, anyway), but his poetry continues to touch a very real place for me. He writes of all kinds of things, sometimes in rantings, other times in clever, funny diatribes. His best poems to me are his quiet, reflective stanzas. This one reminds me a bit of Christopher Smart.
startled into life like fire
in grievous deity my cat
walks around
he walks around and around
with
electric tail and
push-button
eyes
he is
alive and
plush and
final as a plum tree
neither of us understands
cathedrals or
the man outside
watering his
lawn
if I were all the man
that he is
cat–
if there were men
like this
the world could
begin
he leaps up on the couch
and walks through
porticoes of my
admiration.
– by Charles Bukowski, from Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame © Black Sparrow Press, 1974.
I think the best thing about pets — or babies or small children — is that they are what they are, entirely. If we kept that, what could we accomplish?
The kitty stalking through the porticoes of our admiration today is the Dunkeld Cathedral cat; I think her name is Mimi. What I remember about her most is that she refused to be photographed face forward. I have a bunch of pictures of her rump. I don’t know how she managed that. Anyway! She actually belongs to one of the women who rings bells there of a Sunday; she has the run of the place the rest of the week as well.
Poetry Friday today is at the poet Julie Larios’ site, The Drift Record. Julie’s poetry is always astounding; her post for today is something she made with refrigerator magnets, that managed to sound, with that severe syntax, like something ethereal and planned and gorgeous. Color me impressed. Happy weekend.
Wow, I love that, too. That’s some poem. And the question you pose is something I’m going to think on…Excellent, excellent question is what that is.
To be as authentic as my cat. That would have its pros and cons. I don’t want to snore that much, or beg so unashamedly. I would like to sleep that deeply and play that intensely, though.
I am just learning about Charles Bukowski, quirks and all. Thanks for introducing me to this poem of his.
Beautiful kitty.
What could we accomplish indeed. I wonder what it takes to be “all the woman that he is cat.”
Bukowski reminds me of such a particular era in my life. This one I didn’t know but I love so much —
Wow, what a poem. I sense the tiniest bit of a call to arms in it–that I could do more, be more, if I were more authentically me. Thanks for sharing both the poem and your thoughts (and the photo–gorgeous).