diederdas katzen alt und e-version

a mouse't introit
of gray-grey
snag-pylon
'round which in rainbow garb
und pied-measure
the Schicksals und muses waltz


            I Clio

Clio
silver-gray sunrise
ashes at day's end
she sits
paws quill-pin'd
drawing inks from a ball of string -
fate itself out-thread spin of snake &n' rainbow
until snip't
into a life-sized bowl of milk
drying (tongue-wise...)
into a glaze of white on white
(or ghost on bone)


            II Melpomene

in or out
all the world's astayge -
Tom savage'rys
that strut &n' go
return badge'd with wounds
full of hunger &n' sleep
as nook-by-room
bruised by instinct's wobbly ferris
mother &n'kits assume the rutty-furrow
until at last
each by all
are heard in mind's light only


            III Thalia

in self measures
the Falstaffian snores
the Doll dozes restively
as belly-quiet &n' sphinx-like
the inn cat purrs

outside
it is snowing twilight

inn cat wakens
to the flinchy-drumings of candle &n' moth

overtones nudge
Falstaffians fart
Dolls start/mutter

candle (goes out) &n' moth -
where are they now?
(hear that?
the stars are clunking...

inn cat slow blinks
frowns
cheshires a laugh
made of cheddar'd silence

neighn lives (O' -


           
            IV Calliope

ferris purrs-thru
yesterspokes come &n' go (again...
shedding a glitter of sand*
to be or not box't (for-
give the Thalian over-spoke...) anew
* char-ants follow f'r clean-up
that becomes an Ozymandus lyre
musics from a claw-strum'd rose
as menchheit - the begotten mouse&n'mouser -
domesticates harrow by hearth
another mix't hour's-worth
of ours-worth (yawn, alas, of full moon...



            V Urania

night vision
but
nor tom nor mother nor kits
sees or recons their passage
from the star-font writ
of
Leo in the sky

nor by day do they
mis-know
that beneath the reaching arm
, or bush's overhang -
the origin of fondle &n' food
nor (bone in) can un-know
that for them &n' theirs
the owl in red-shift
is not the stuff of milk
or Hollywood


         
            VI Euterpe

self's trio
cats have but a three-string
pure they stuffs
of meows purr'd-meows
&n'd the resonant growls
of grab-it or fight

who can guess what else?

otherwise

from April keeps
to when the leaves wither &n' down-strum

we sing for them...



            VII Terpsichore

jete
up for ball swing
laser's insane Lebans
near-miss't bird
pure elan
or
escape's nearest fence
beneath the hissly branch of all things

this is how the sworl ends
  "    "    "    "      "        "
silent feet
parting fogs with pock't cursives

(repeat first
then second stanza (optional)



            VIII Polymnia

toms
yawl in drunken fortes
moms
in curved altos

both (whatever they may
they whatever)
in a music too antique
for the nudge or bark of human words

window in
, window out -



            XI Erato

comes now
Glenda the Good
safe from all but Trojan harps
the keeper of cats

Eros is as does
prone to vagabondia
whose passing shadow's enough
to (however un-handy the hour) grow love
from the pulse-deep strums
of self's virtuosity (O rose
o'rose...

winnowing (au talons -
against the engines of time* comes hard
* always/everywhere 'too o'clock'
a roll of milk-less dice
wounding the day along
until comes a cauter of stars
mixing, alas, the salts of preservation
with the sands of wither &n sting

still
Glenda the Good
keeper of cats subsumes
saves with her own muses &n' fates (ergos
&n' errors in the scheme of all things)
some in her room darkness
from itself

moon
, purr...