Another Cat Poem. by Ian C Smith

Overheard in the early stages of these beige days,/my last challenge, trekking the desert/far from a ruinous prime when oases always shimmered,/two women walking laps refer to a dog named Smooth/reminding me of our cat dubbed thus as a kitten/for his velvet pelt that shone, catching the sun,/later regarded by our gang as an operator
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You remember that time? When Dad left. He’d hit Mum but she was cool. She wasn’t cool but she was cool, you know what I’m saying.

She Who Gets Slapped

I guess I would have heard if she were dead
         hanging hankies from the clothesline
it’s the fear in the red dress
         complicity/complexity                keeping me away
or my misunderstanding             of hot consommé
a rose-colored marquee      and silent movie faces
         and why was she trying to woo him
with a ripped silk shawl       and pilgrim imitations
         as a little girl watched the screen
and left to pick some violets glass slicing through her ligaments
         almost lost a finger.

When the ribbed smell of semi-ripe guavas strikes you like a presence.
When the panther is in its element and the parrots screech like rusted wheels.
When you are locked by the gaze of a bull and come to be suddenly situated
In an eternal summer.
(Summer of table-top mountains that is circled
By the floating gondolas and schooners of memorable clouds)
Then, it is time for the spirit to leap from one glorious stone to another
Like a spotted frog.
Can you dare to know what lies on the other side of the
Velveteen curtains of the butterflies that slice the sun-lanced air?
Whether the chattering of the cicadas points to possibilities of what could be.
Whether we can ever replicate the creepers
steady in their progress towards an airy outpost.