On Cats

so I had to take a chance on Millie. She always had plenty of food. At any rate, she alwayshad cheese.

and they look at me

and say through the irises: be

calm, the sea is your blood, the moon is

one of your balls — the big left one —

and your automobile sits in the garage waiting

on you patiently and

even your wife

loves you.

“my god,” they will say, “all Chinaski writes about

are cats!”

“my god,” they used to say, “all Chinaski writes about

are whores!”

the complainers will complain and keep buying my

books: they love the way I irritate

them.

magic persists

without us

no matter what

we do

against it.

Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces. TV can make me ill in five minutes, but I can look at an animal for hours and find nothing but grace and glory, life as it should be.

a reader
my cat shit in my archives

he climbed into my Golden State Sunkist

orange box

and he shit on my poems

my original poems

saved for the university archives.

that one-eared fat black critic

he signed me off.

Now here’s a beautiful cat. Its tongue hangs out, it’s cross-eyed. Its tail is chopped off. He’s beautiful, he’s got sense. We took him to the vet to have him x-rayed—he got hit by a car. The doctor says, ‘This cat’s been run over twice, he’s been shot, his tail’s been cut off.’ I said, ‘This cat is me.’ He came to the door starving to death. He knew right where to come. We’re both bums off the street.

it doesn’t engender up

any special brilliance

to know that

we are going wrong again.

we laugh less and less,

become more sane.

all we want is

the absence of others.

that cat belonged to somebody

it had a flea collar.

I don’t know about the

woman.

I don’t like love as a command, as a search. it must come to you, like a hungry cat at the door.