Ask Mittens The Cat Your Metaphysical Questions

There are things which are known,
Clear,
Predictable and provable--
A carton of milk left out on the counter
In the sun from the streaky window
For a week
While its owner pores over ancient religious texts
Or surfs porn
In an access of unnatural zeal,
Will roil with unspeakable rot
And spoilage to turn one's skin gray.

Such is the rational world.

Enter "Mittens" the psychic cat.
Mittens knows
In the morning
That Fat Henry from downstairs will have a coronary
In front of Wheel Of Fortune
That evening,
But she refuses to say.

The things Mittens sees
And the things Mittens is privy to,
Make God look like a piker
Viewing smoke in a darkened room
Through the keyhole.

Then there is the benighted general run of humanity.

They know only what is spoon fed to them
By pomaded newsmen,
The terrors instilled in them
By hovering, neurotic parents,
And the odd fact picked up
From graphic novels
Found accordioned at the filthy kiosk where the number ten bus pauses
To consume them whole.

Turn to Mittens the psychic cat.

Is your life a blue diamond
In a rose bloom
In a beautiful woman's hand?
Is your heart
A hawk through the smashed window
Of the two car garage of time?
Mittens knows,
But Mittens will never say.

Tough shit, Princess.

Truth is a black ink riddle
Written on a crow's wing
By a blind man.
You could break your fingers and your neck
Trying to read that braille
On the fly.
Leave it to Mittens
Whose eyes are designed for the lunacy of night.

_____


for dverse poetics