so bashful, nothing to say
with your proud head
in the windshield that way.
I told you not to let Cerberus drive--
there are cats everywhere
on the center line
with their nine lives.
I am made of cream; you of dust--
Who's queen now?
Me, alive, nonplussed,
switch-tailed, not sorry much.
______
For Flash 55 at Real Toads, with inspiration from "Oh, Fortuna".
'there are cats everywhere/on the center line/with their nine lives...'--gosh I love that. This whole poem winds between natural, unnatural, and supernatural like a sinuous feline between the ankles, purring--who knows why cats purr--possibly because life is made of cream sometimes. You've sent the bar over the moon again, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew where you got your crazy-brilliant ideas from, Shay. I'd like to tap in sometime. I am envious of everything, including the title.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing crash test 55!
Each head of the dog still has to kill the cat thrice.. love how you mix the classic with modern here.
ReplyDeleteIt's been years since I've thought or read of Cerberus. Thanks for a throw-back to my mythology phase when I was 11...
ReplyDeleteHarsh lesson...
ReplyDeleteLove, love,love all of it. IN particular, the first ants really caught my attention! Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteJust loved this. Sensuous, soft, endearing - and then pow!
ReplyDeleteHow clever you are at playing with words. I loved it!
ReplyDeletePat
Critter Alley
Ha. This is great. :)
ReplyDeleteI love the "proud head in the windshield." Priceless. But hey, any girl can be a queen, as long as she likes what she sees in the mirror. Even if she's a grotesque, dead mess.
Cerberus driving. Being made of cream. You're so creative.
Such a cool poem-Cerberus and the cats--just wonderful, creative, fantastical--yet also very human. Thanks.k.
ReplyDeleteOnly you could have written that first stanza. Damn.
ReplyDeletelove the sing-songyness of this. (yeah, my non-poetic-technical-knowledge is showing). and i've always liked the word non-plussed. :)
ReplyDeleteHa ha--fun, despite the bashed in head. You should be grinning like the cat who swallowed the canary, or is it the cat who got the cream?
ReplyDeleteLove it all,last verse in particular.
ReplyDeleteThat was weird and delightful. :-)
ReplyDeleteZQ
A mythology lesson (had to google). Mortals return to dust - but cream rises to the top -- so who indeed is queen now. A puzzle there my ignorance can't figure out but I absorbed the tone and as always your words make me ponder.
ReplyDeleteOMG, why do the rest of us even bother? LOL. I loved this, of course.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty of a 55 is that one has to leap into it in media res , get right down to core business, and leave the going in and going out for the reader. You accomplish that by wallops, all the way through. Hits like dream and floats like a dragon.
ReplyDeleteOh man, the carnage!
ReplyDeleteYikes and meow!
ReplyDeleteThis produces awesome images in my head! :)
ReplyDeleteThis has a great conversational tone and tight in its brevity...I enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteI TOLD you not to let Cerberus drive!
ReplyDeleteGobsmacked at how you do what you do. This is an amazement of a poem. The cats on the centre line - oy.
ReplyDeleteTea leaves of dynastic succession read by a truckstop sibyl. Breaker breaker broke her.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely love the cats on the center line and not to let Cerberus drive, LOL! "I am made of cream; you of dust--" that is so good.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me on this second reading was the rhyme, first of all, and the feeling I should be humming because it felt like a song lyric. Thanks for keeping the memory of the 55 alive, Shay, with this perfect gem of a poem. That first stanza! ~hedgewitch
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