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| Photographer unknown | Thanks to |
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Joseph Wood Krutch
"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."
Charles Bukowski | The Mockingbird
the mockingbird had been following the cat
all summer
mocking mocking mocking
teasing and cocksure;
the cat crawled under rockers on porches
tail flashing
and said something angry to the mockingbird
which I didn’t understand.
yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway
with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,
wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,
feathers parted like a woman’s legs,
and the bird was no longer mocking,
it was asking, it was praying
but the cat
striding down through centuries
would not listen.
I saw it crawl under a yellow car
with the bird
to bargain it to another place.
summer was over.
all summer
mocking mocking mocking
teasing and cocksure;
the cat crawled under rockers on porches
tail flashing
and said something angry to the mockingbird
which I didn’t understand.
yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway
with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,
wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,
feathers parted like a woman’s legs,
and the bird was no longer mocking,
it was asking, it was praying
but the cat
striding down through centuries
would not listen.
I saw it crawl under a yellow car
with the bird
to bargain it to another place.
summer was over.
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats | T. S. Eliot
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| First edition's cover “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats” is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. It is the basis for the record-setting musical “Cats”. The poems were written during the 1930s and included by Eliot, under his assumed name "Old Possum", in letters to his godchildren. They were collected and published in 1939 with cover illustrations by the author, and quickly re-published in 1940, illustrated in full by Nicolas Bentley. It has also been published in reillustrated versions by Edward Gorey (1982) and Axel Scheffler (2009). *Στα ελληνικά το "Εγχειρίδιο Πρακτικής Γατικής του γέρο Πόσσουμ", έχει μεταφραστεί από την Παυλίνα Παμπούδη και το Γιάννη Ζέρβα .............................................................................................. Thanks to Poly Hatjimanolaki |
