Skip to the poem.

Another sestina - I say another 'cause I put it up later than Alegria, which, as of this writing, is the only one that's here. (Explanation of sestina form is located there.)

I am much bemused by this poem. It was written to a someone in specific - who know that he is the target thereof, he was the first to see the completed thing. It beat on the inside of my skull for about two weeks before breaking loose in a gaming session at Random Hall. (Making it very difficult to concentrate on locked doors marked with all kinds of nasty runes.)

The Blue-Eyed Cat

There is a gentle blue-eyed cat
Quick to unexlained smile
Enigmatic to a feline point
Fur rich and soft to every touch
Rare though I make them
For reason, perhaps, no more than fear.

No reason, perhaps, for fear
From such a sweetling cat
But still, my thoughts, when I make them
Come only with the faintest smiles
And only rarely do I touch
Uncertain, I, as to the point

Of offense, the point
Of claws and other fears
The worry of a hostile touch
Back-flattened ears of angry cat.
So I hide myself behind smiles
And treasure them

Those fur-rippled strokes when I dare them
Bringing myself to a point
At which I can say more than a smile
Stifle fear
And gather in a warming cat
In my arms, allowing me my touch,

A precious touch,
More so because I hold them
So rarely, such a beast is cat -
Independent to a point
And more than all I fear
The distant smile

Vacant, unfeeling, cold smile
Forbidding caress, forbidding touch,
Making forever true my fear
Choking back words before I speak them
Making forever point-
Less any wish I might have for a cat.

And so, to the cat, I offer smiles, not touch
Letting them be a point of no fear.

- March 6, 1998

Index of Works