The Cats

[Terri]

I'd like to tell you they are now
Owners of a small motel in Florida;
That they lounge in the sunny courtyard
And only rent to old women, PETA members.

But this is too important to be told
By an unreliable narrator.
I am trying not to lie.

I had fifty cats, once--
"Had" in the sense that I
Had a boyfriend, or an addiction.
But this isn't about me.
Isn't that true?

A small refugee camp
Set up in my apartment;
No birth control, no sanitation,
Illnesses went around and took out
Eyes, lives. We were all stressed
From overcrowding. None of us
Had money, or a way out.

Names? Of course they had names;
I remember them: Mousey, Nosey,
Big Fluff, Little Gray. Names have
Always been attributes when
Life is uncertain.

In the end, I was taken out
By the scruff of my neck; put
In a van, minus part of an eye,
A leg, heart and lungs failing.
The paramedics noted that I had fleas.
The cats went away in a van, too;
I don't think they were so lucky.

Do you believe me?

[hester_prynne]

Do I believe you???
Hell! I wuz there too!!!!!

A very wonderful read....
Thanks for posting it.
H

[Arcadia]

The paramedics noted that I had fleas.

Do you believe me?

mmm.... nice funny reading!!!!!!
welcome terri!!!!!!!!!!

[westcoast]

dem cats took ya fer a ride! fun stuff here.

~westcoast

[Terri]

Thanks. This is odd; I would never have guessed that people would read this as "fun"--it just didn't occur to me. While I am playing with questions of identity/truthfulness etc., this happens to be a true story, mine. I'm a little worried that it misfired like this; while I WAS trying to keep the tone flat, moderate, "just the facts, ma'am", and wanted the humor of the opening stanza to ease people into a story that might be repellent, I hoped this would have some impact. Hmmm. Now what?

[Lightning Rod]

sometimes when a poem 'misfires' it can hit the bullseye

I like the way it plays with reality

[mnaz]

I like the shift of sunny into grim here, and the gradual dissolution of narrator into spiraling, devolving subject. And when I say "like", I also mean cringe a bit. Well done.

[Terri]

Thanks, L Rod, and mnaz, you're generous. I'm glad it did for you what I was trying for. Yeah, the playing with perceptions of reality was important to me. On PIB, someone commented, "i like it because i don't know if the narrator is telling the truth - i don't know if the narrator would even know what the truth is. is this the narrator's nightmare or mine? the poem keeps me off-balance -"--that's kind of what I wanted. Sometimes I still don't believe it.

[stilltrucking]

I enjoyed this greatly

It is like now I got to read everything you write.


Stunning

[hester_prynne]

Gee, I thought it was a great read like I said, I felt like I was there!
I hadn't realized the intense seriousness of it though.
For me, there is a strong sense of cartoonesque in the piece, so the temperature of it eluded me. Maybe less of that would make it read as serious you meant for it to be?

I've read stories about this kind of situation and I agree it's really a bad heartwrenching scene, however it seems so unreal to me that scenes like that are for real, I mean how could someone let that happen? Where is the logic in keeping more animals than one can sustain? That's what makes me laugh, although uncomfortably.

I care very much about animals, however I can't save them all, though I wish I could. I think it's really illogical of people to put themselves in a situation where they have too many animals to care for. It shouldn't be allowed.
Just some thoughts
H

[Doreen Peri]

I thought it was interesting how you changed the narrator's voice from describing what it was like to using images as if you were a cat in the last stanza... (the scruff of your neck, the fleas... minus part of a leg, etc. as if you were a cat who'd gotten in fights)...

I didn't quite get why the cats weren't as lucky. They went away in a van, too... hmmm... you had paramedics, but they didn't? Were they dead? Is that what you're implying?

I donno, terri, even though there were parts to this I didn't quite get, I found it charming in a sort of real-life troubling way. heh... I mean, you and those cats living like that in such tight quarters and was it sanitary? You poor things!

Do I believe you?

Yeah, of course not.

[stilltrucking]

Stunning, I was thinking kind of how they stun cattle with a sledge hammer.
A kick in the head
something that shoked me with wonder.
I doane know how to say it
I don't know if i made light of it by saying I enjoyed reading it.
I just thought the writting was brilliant, But I am too ignorant to explain why.

How can someone go see a tragic movie and say they enjoyed it?

Unbelievable, did I believe
sure because this is the creative board. Maybe on snippets I would have read it differently.

Billellectric once wrote a piece about going to a mental helath center. Falling out of your laughing is kind of a cliche, but I did. And then I found out that it was supposed to be a hell of bad story

Let me introduce myself terri
I am crazy jack
son of crazy mike
the guy with the sick sense of humor
please pardon this open text box ramble
THis will be my last post like this.

From now on I am going to write on parchment with a quill. Make my own ink too.

I have been seduced my the magic of transistors. damn me