Procession of Cats

Like a long silver ribbon,

the path from the moon

stretches to Earth tonight. And

down the path come the cats,

striding with their lazy lope.

Thousands of them, leaving

their lunar lair, returning

to this ground with moonlight

in their round unblinking eyes.

Arriving, they take their feline

time to scatter to homes,

hideouts, forests, plains,

jungles, mountains, and alleys.

Collecting Thoughts

In their abode, "I'm going

to go collect my thoughts"

became a code 

for "I'm going to take a nap."

The euphemism's like a cat's

toy or anything a feline feels

like batting around, slobbering on,

and then--before a nap--ignoring. 

Well, there those thoughts are,

spread out on a cloth in the mind.

Not very many, not of the highest

quality. Mostly worries, minor obsessions, 

images of flowers or birds--something

pleasant, maybe, to look at 

as one rolls over and feels

grogginess close the eyes

and fog the conscious mind. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Wine-Red Clouds at Twilight

Red-wine-soaked clouds

at dusk sing an intoxicated anthem

of light to summon such 

night creatures as raccoons,

bats, cats, and certain devotees

of Charles--Baudelaire

and Bukowski, those bad boys.

Sing, you wine-dark sacks 

of rain. Sing!

Hans Ostrom 2024

Cat's Eyes Revery

I left sleep's velvet shack,

walked across a field of dew-

doused feathers, arrived

at two identical round ponds,

both glowing pale green

like a cat's eyes. I

then picked up a couple spongy 

pale yellow orbs, palm-sized,

tossed one into one pond,

the other into the other.

They floated to the centers

of the ponds and turned dark.

The nearby forest, black

in shadow, purred loudly,

vibrating my ribs, cranium,

and feet. At my back came

a cold rough breeze. 

hans ostrom 2024

The Cat and I Recover

Recovery requires a bit

more attention from my wife

than usual: 
the cat's suspicions
start to swell into resentment.

He just doesn't like me, anyway,
in spite of my efforts to become
staff-person of the year. Now this.

She sets the steaming cup beside me.
He stares at this unfolding outrage
from the back of the couch, sunlight
streaming in behind him haloing his fur.

"How are you?" I ask him.
He stares. Stares, not blinking.
"I didn't get brain surgery to spite you,"
I say, sipping Earl Grey cautiously.
He lowers his head onto his paws
and closes his eyes.

hans ostrom 2023

© Feb 27    cats • recovery • surgery • earl • grey

Beauty Likes the Smell of Tuna

"To seek a satisfactory definition
of 'beauty,'" she said, "is as they say
like looking for a black cat in a black
room on a black night," and then
sipped from her third martini.
The bartender replied, "You just
have to remember to take
some tuna with you, then."


hans ostrom 2019

So Somewhere Sally

So somewhere Sally
got lost on vacation.

She was working too
hard at relaxing.

She heard a cat
mew-owing.

The sound brought
her back to here,

where she were, in
the blur of being somewhere.


hans ostrom 2018

Cookbook Unrest

I hear the cookbooks in the kitchen--
garrulous relics from pre-digital times.

They flop around on the floor. They
gossip about how and what I cook.

"Seriously," one of them says, "if he's
going to improvise all the time,

why consult us, why insult us?"
God damn their greasy pages.

The chefs who authored them: bah!
No one should be famous for cooking.

A cat has heard the books now.
He becomes a lynx and bounds

off into the kitchen.  It's quiet
in their all of a sudden.  That's right:

close yourselves, you recipe barns.
Digest your dissatisfaction.



hans ostrom 2017

Be Careful What

"Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."

--Old Saying, variously attributed

Be careful what you fish for. It
may catch you. Be careful who
you swish for (for whom), for
you may get swashed or even
buckled. Be careful what you
kiss for, for kissing is a kind of wish.

Be careful what you dish, no not
because you later may have to take
it, but because dishing carefully
is as we know the right thing to do.

"Be careful what you hiss for":
a feline admonition.



hans ostrom 2017

I Had My Eyes On You

I had my eyes on you. They were
those plastic ones from the novelty store.
I had them on your bare abdomen.
You were lying down (as

opposed to lying up) absorbing
sunheat. "I can't seem to take
my eyes off of you," I said.
Eyes closed, you said something

like "Huhnhmnm!" Which jolted
your stomach-muscles. My eyes
tumbled off onto what covers
Earth's crust. You put your eyes

on me--a warning glare. That's when
the devil showed up in the form
of the neighborhood's vicious
cat. I cast an eye at him--missed.

But he scampered. "Get you out
of here!"I yelled. "Same goes for you,"
you said to me. I gathered my eyes
and kept spinning in space on

this thing we call a planet.


hans ostrom 2016

Feline Disappointment

I aspire
to earn one day
the scorn expressed
sometimes
by certain cats I know.


hans ostrom 2016

"How to Be a Cat," by Hans Ostrom

Traveling Cat

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Traveling Cat

He was a traveling cat. He raced
and slunk, padded and trotted, sleek
and balanced, tendons full of
saved up speed. He moved silently
except for a hiss or a yowl now
and then, or a tipped over can:
never his fault. Yes, he was a

traveling cat, moving from this to
that, from at to at, detecting
motion, smooth as lotion, reading
the air, decoding sounds sent
from everywhere. Itinerant and

cool, self-possessed and freely
feline--leonine, nined up with lives,
cagey but uncaged, guileless and wise
was the traveling cat.

Sometimes A Cat

This summer, our household features not one but two cats, a cerebral Russian blue, female, who is 10 years old, and a tabby who may have some Norwegian Forest Cat in his background; he is one year old. Her name is Lisa Marie, after Elvis Presley's daughter, and his name is Jerry Garcia. Jerry is a native of California, very laid back but also impulsive. We sense that Lisa Marie desires him to be more thoughtful. Unless they are supervised, the cats must be kept separate. When I watch television, the tabby gets up in a nearby chair and watches it with me. --Just a couple guys watching the tube.


Sometimes A Cat

Sometimes a cat relaxes so much,
it forgets where it is. That is,
sometimes a cat, relaxed, remembers
nothing is any place and anywhere
is nowhere in particular. A cat's
among the most in-particular creatures,
a purely present artist of equilibrium,
a monarch of the moment, eyes like
twin comprehending moons.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Everybody Is A Critic

(image: canary, expressing an opinion)

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Everybody Is A Critic

*

"That's not poetry," said the cat,

adding, "--it's mere doggerel."

Then the cat closed its eyes,

as if to say, "Go revise."

*

Poets, even cats are critics.

Your poems will bring you love

from neither human nor creature.

*

Feed the cat. Walk the dog.

Write your poetry. If you want

a friend, buy a canary. Just don't

line the cage with one of your poems.

*

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Ambidexterity

I've heard that genuine ambidexterity in humans is relatively rare, but I've read so little about the subject, I know virtually nothing about it. Neurologists have probably discovered some fascinating things on the subject.

One of my brothers is ambidextrous. He writes with his right hand, plays baseball left-handed, for example. He can do many things with equal acumen with either hand. Because he batted left-handed, he taught me to hit the baseball left-handed, from the right side of the plate. Therefore, I was one of those rare baseball players who "bats left, throws right" as they used to say on baseball cards. Otherwise, I was not a rare baseball player, if you get my drift. On my best day, I went 3-for-3, with one walk, and no errors in the outfield. Cool.

I am also a left-handed golfer, and a terrible one; nonetheless, I have a special interest in the careers of Bob Charles (retired now, I believe) and Phil Mickelson. The interesting thing about left-handed golfers is that they're not simply the mirror image of right-handed ones. They look different. Mickelson leans a certain way on putts and the short game that reveals he's left-handed. He wouldn't lean that way (even if it were the opposite way) if her were right-handed; that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

From my strictly amateur observations, cats appear to be ambidextrous--part of that fearful symmetry, I reckon, that Blake noticed.

Ambidextrous Cats

The ambidexterity of cats is a pleasure to watch,
like spats on feet of fabulous tap-dancers. Cats
have an answer for any motion they see. Sometimes
the response is just alert stasis. Other times, the
chase is on. Often two or more feet, claws unsheathed,
are involved effectively, symmetrically. The tail
gets bushy--"fat," we say. And hey, the whiskers
twitch. With precision, cats seize the which
that moved into view, using two paws equally.



Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Taxes Make Cats Sick

As everyone except those who don't pay taxes knows, it's tax-season in the U.S. By "those who don't pay taxes," I mean those wily global capitalists. If you can run a company into the dirt, threaten nations' economies, AND get a bonus for doing all that great work, there's no way you're going to mess with anything as trivial as taxes.

Before I get to taxes and cats, I should mention that hotel-owner Leona Helmsley famously said, "Taxes? We don't pay taxes. Taxes are for the little people." Unfortunately, the government convicted her of tax-evasion, and she had to go to prison. There wasn't an immense amount to like about Leona. She was overbearing, and, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, she treated her employees terribly, humiliating them instead of interacting with them as professional employees.

Nonetheless, I had some sympathy left over for her after she got out of prison, lived as a recluse, died, and left all her money to a dog. Leaving it to a worthy non-profit would have been better, but leaving it to the dog showed just how isolated and probably almost mad she was. Apparently the dog doesn't need that much to live on (it is still alive), so I think some of the money does go to charity. "Can't buy me love . . ." does seem to apply in this case.

Anyway, we're getting ready to have our taxes "done"--quite an expression. The process requires as much work as if we figured out the taxes ourselves. The only difference is that, by having a professional fill out the forms, they're filled out correctly. That's a substantial difference.

We begin the process by scattering forms and such on the floor. We like to call this stage of the process "chaos."

The cat threw up on one of the papers. We're working on several hypotheses to explain this occurrence. 1) The cat objects to income tax. Cat's do operate in the world as if they're entitled to everything, after all. 2) The cat found an arithmetical error in the form, or it read the form and believed we'd paid too much for something--or that we should have spent the money on something cat-related. 3) The paper in question had been handled by a dog working as a cashier. 4) The cat had a hairball stuck. Most of the evidence supports 1, 2, and 3, but we haven't ruled out #4 entirely.

The upshot is that one of the supporting documents we're sending to our accountant will have a stain on it.

After we scatter the forms and other records, we fill out a booklet our accountant has given us. It's loaded with questions. Many of them seem strange to me, so strange they induced--as opposed to inspired--a poem of sorts.


Tax-Form Questions

Did you sell a medieval castle last year? If so, then go
to line 25C and wait.

Did an imaginary friend live with you more than
50% of the time last year? Did the friend pay
imaginary rent?

Did a marauding band of unfettered global
capitalists steal your retirement-fund? If so,
join the crowd, and weep in the streets.

Has anyone ever actually asked you what you'd
like your taxes to support? We thought not.

Add the total on line 36A to the total on line
1,401, 263C and divide by the total on line
6F. Then multiply by eleven. Light incense and
chant. Count on your fingers. You are ready.
Welcome to Taxland, Pilgrim.


Copyright 2009 by Hans Ostrom

Natural Rhetoric

Natural Rhetoric

After the cat goes outside, two
perched crows open black beaks
wide to release loud sounds
suggesting outrage, warning,
threat--crow-rhetoric, mechanical,
never ornate. The cat looks up,
sees birds in feline-vision, and makes
cat-noises, nothing as loud or dire
as a warning, more of a refined
complaint, really--aristocratic.

After the cat runs and hides
in shrubbery, we make human
sounds, calling her "name," making
nonsense-noises, expressing
pretend-anger, muttering real
frustration. We're convincing
ourselves of something, not sure
what. The crows leave, the cat
reappears, we pick up the cat
and carry it into the house and talk
to each other about what just happened.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

What He Knows

What I Know

Squirrels scratch the roof tonight.
I didn't know they could be nocturnal.
My wife's asleep. I know she's weary.
I've survived life thus far. I know I'm
a remnant. Now the furnace, an old
smoker in the basement, wakes
and coughs, exhales through creaking
ducts. I know I need to change the filter.

I hear a car careening down the alley.
It crunches a trash-can, keeps going.
I know the driver gunning the engine is
drunk, will pull out onto an avenue. I don't
know if I'll hear a siren soon. I expect to.

Near me a gray cat groans in sleep.
I don't know what cats see when they
dream. God, if you're there, good for you.
Good for me, too. The rent is due in ten
days, and I can't afford to get sick.
That's what I know.


Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom

Nosing Around

This morning I was positing the following: assuming human civilizations remain intact and continue to advance technologically, will it be possible, relatively soon, for humans to experience firsthand (firstpaw) how dogs and cats--for example--see, hear, and especially smell the world? Might the technicians be able to hook us up to a dog-simulation program and trick our brains and noses into detecting odors as a dog does? I assume the experience would be overwhelming; it might be too much for the brain to handle. In the case of cats, smelling and tasting apparently overlap in an official capacity. Sometimes you'll catch a cat smelling something and then opening its mouth as if to breathe in the odor. Apparently there's something called "the Jacobson organ" in the mouth, and it "tastes" odors. Seeing cats do this is amusing because they look like they are about to chuckle, but no sound comes out. I reckon the difference between tasting and smelling is pretty arbitary anyway, as we need our noses in order to taste things "properly," and it's all about molecules hitting a sensor-system, isn't it?

This has all been by way of introducing a poem about the nose:

Nose

Like a cliff dwelling, it hangs
from the sheer visage. Long ago,

Coyote caught a whiff of Moon,
has been yipping, nose to sky, ever since.

Long ago, our kind caught
spore of something dangerous

and sweet in woods, traded
innocence for perplexity, straight up,

has been on the move ever since, pulled
along by scent of something just ahead and

wanted. Come on, catch up, exhorts
Nose, drive that thing to tree. What

it is, why you want it: these
can wait. Smell it? Get it.