Cinquain for a Spring-Fevered Cat

The cat

seems fevered by
the warmth and light outside
his lair, this house. He yowls and runs around,
Spring-zinged.

Hans Ostrom 2024

Some Fable Days

 Sometimes I fall into a fable state,

human-into-animal. Once I walked heavily
away from my job, wagging my heavy head:
elephant. Cackling minions threw pebbles at my
wrinkled buttocks. I could have turned
and run over them. Didn't. Another day--this:

Somebody was talking at me in front
of a group, apparently scoring clever points.

But I'd lost the topic. Wordish noises
from her mouth might as well have been
wind. I was Cat--dozing in the pride
of my mind, not hungry, a little
sleepy, there and not there. Someone
elbowed me when I started to purr--
and before I hissed.

I've spent many days as a badger, digging,
fretting, rooting around, growling to myself,
making a worried mess of my mental
burrow, getting lots of badger-writing done.
Dog, snake, the classic fox....

I tell you, friend, some fable days are sometimes
what I need--to stay human.

(revision) Hans Ostrom 2022

"Surreal Cat," by Hans Ostrom

Once upon a whatever,
as aluminum homes and nature
flew by where my windows
used to be, what with the tornado
and all,

there was a surreal cat.
Yep, that's what I have to report.

The color of her coat
depended greatly on
the nature of the magazine
one's eyeballs were reading to one.

"I think surrealism is bullshit,"
Margo said. "I think it is life
itself," replied Joe. Neither
one of them existed.

Things fall apart. That's
not necessarily terrible. Things
stay together--not necessarily
good. As to the falcon, the falconer,
and the goddamned gyres, who knows?
Seriously, Yeats can be
a real pain in the ass sometimes.

We at the Surreal Cat Corporation
appreciate your refraining
from talk of apocalypse.

"Tame Cat," by Ezra Pound

"Choking It Back"

Today I happened to be
watching a cat choke back
the urge to vomit
a hair-ball just
as I was thinking of
the sheer number of Americans
who, first, consider themselves
White and, second, simply
cannot abide even the thought
of a Black man as President.
I want to say to them,
Vomit up that hatred, first,
and, second, read a
goddamned history book.



hans ostrom 2013

Some Fable-Days

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Some Fable-Days

For ten minutes one afternoon, I became
an elephant. I walked heavily away from
where I work, wagging my heavy head.
Cackling minions threw pebbles at my
sad ass.  On another day, I became a cat:

Somebody was talking at me in front
of a group, apparently scoring clever points.
But I'd lost the topic, and word-like noises
from her mouth might as well have been
red jello for all the sense they made to me.
So I stared. I was Cat--there and not there,
dozing in the pride of my mind, not hungry
and therefore supremely disinterested.

I've spent many days as a badger, digging,
fretting, rooting around, growling to myself,
making a lovely mess of my underground
burrow, getting lots of badger-writing done.
Some fable-days, I tell you, are often
just what a human being needs--to stay human.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom