"'The Meow Talk' app analyzes cat sounds against some 40 million 'meows'
in its database to suss out the meaning.'" --Emily Joshou, The Paw Print,2025, p. 50
Minor meow: compact complaint, faint inquiry, note of ennui--
or all three. Brief
throated grumble: not urgent, it's just that things
could be a bit better.
Bared-teeth MEOW: Now! Hungry! Angry! Fusion
of sign- and sound-language. Wild,
whiplash yowl: Fight. Claws out. Neck-hair up.
Alarm. Alert the press! Call my lawyer!
Constricted throat-hiss. Sepentine. Next, claws
will rake. Meat and blood. Tactical sound-spear.
The yawn-meow, perhaps finished with groan-and
sigh. That cat's got those low-down napping blues.
For milennia, with such few sounds, this terse
lingo, cats have domesticated us.
Trained and bossed us. Been equal
if not superior to us. In each feline-infused
abode, cats sustain a coup d'etat,
lay down Cat Law.
hans ostrom 2025
