Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Zulu Cat and Her Many Disciplines

I was at my doctor's office,
in the waiting room,
gestating the latest creature within me,
when the door opened and she invited me in.

Her fern plants swayed as if we might soon be plucking doubloons
from chests heaved up on the surf from storm-sunk galleons.
Did I mention that my doctor is from some island?
Off the coast of Spain?
Majorca, I believe.
Maybe Easter Island,
because I have sometimes interrupted her at her carvings,
and had to stand there under the withering stare
of some ancestor or other.

My first inkling that she was in a rare mood
came when I noticed that she had become a cat.
A gray cat, specifically,
or was she tortoise shell?
The light kept changing, due to the swaying ferns.
She meowed, but I plumbed her meaning immediately:
she was in the mood!

Now, you will argue that I was irrational,
deluded, hallucinating, or worse.
I tell you, I am as precise as a court reporter.
I relate only facts, 
repeatable data from the snow globe of my therapy.
How I love the little cabin inside it,
the fireplace,
the polar bear rug!

Setting aside her Zulu mask and disguise,
my doctor demanded of me a tribute, a token,
a task to be undertaken,
if I truly wanted to be hers.
(In a therapeutic setting.
Under control of protocol.
In the name of science!)
How incredibly thrilling it was,
to see her jump onto the desk and switch her tail!

I crossed my legs,
I looked shyly down,
then up again,
my head tilted to one side,
my tongue playing at the corner of my lips.
I was a woman singularly eager to dispense with boundaries,
and to publish my name into the text of her desire!

Coyly, she asked me my name.
Constance, I told her.
Beelzebub, Candy, Electra, Spuddy, Spock,
anything you like, babe.
She wrote them all down.
Tell me about your dreams, she said.
You. They are all of you.
Tell me about your mother.
You.
Tell me about your father.
You.
Imago?
You.
Fetish? Obsession? Idee fixe???
You, honey. All of them.

With that, she stopped being a cat, and returned to being a woman.
Doubloon? she said, offering me one.
I took it and bit the edge. Real gold!
She beat her spear against her stretched hide shield:
boom boom boom, like our hearts!
She had a Rorschach birthmark on her thigh,
and I kissed it as if it were the Blarney Stone.
Hypnotize me, baby, I said.
Already done! she assured me,
and from the things I went on to say to her while I was under,
she is clearly the marvel of the swinging watch,
my counter-transference chica 
with the cool cat claws and the sexy librarian smile.
______

for my BFF Hedgewitch's word list challenge at Real Toads!



15 comments:

  1. I am smiling as wide as the Cheshire cat at this one, Shay. You wrote a little something surreal the other day, but for me this one trumps it totally, with the doctor-cat-hypnotist, the floaty fern shadows and the totally perfect snow globe metaphor--I love that whole stanza. And the last stanza, too, which is the most dream-like(and hilarious) of them all, with the illogical focus on rational detail in a crazy, through-the-looking-glass situation. The Rorschach birthmark, and the Blarney Stone! You are just the best at this kind of thing. Thanks for working so hard on a work night to do my challenge proud.

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  2. just pouring out gold are we?

    "I relate only facts,
    repeatable data from the snow globe of my therapy.
    How I love the little cabin inside it,
    the fireplace,
    the polar bear rug!"


    So much good stuff



    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral

    =^..^= <3

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  3. You knock me out and then at the end say this is a poem composed from a word list. I am gnashing my few little broken toothy stumps together - can you hear them?

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  4. My what grows from a word list...Love it! "I relate only facts, repeatable data from the snow globe of my therapy." That line is too cool.

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  5. Under control of protocol.
    In the name of science!)
    How incredibly thrilling it was,
    to see her jump onto the desk and switch her tail!

    . . . .

    I was a woman singularly eager to dispense with boundaries,
    and to publish my name into the text of her desire!"


    HAD to come back for more (like cake in the middle of the night)

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  6. I too was gnashing my teeth over this one...

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  7. she is so obviously a tortoiseshell! ;)

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  8. Shay, this is just too damn cool. I love it!

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  9. Phew! That was some therapy session!

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  10. I loved every single detail in this . . . it would seem Jung and Hedgewitch inspired the 'crazy' out of many of us. This is fantabulous!

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  11. YOU enchant me with your office visit and your fairytail ;D
    I am struggling with writing anything at all-it was nice to visit you! You inspire, as always~

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  12. Visions while under hypnosis, or was there something ancient and ethereal at work here? Great piece!!

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  13. Great post, funny photo! Cute cat!

    My B&W Blog: http://hanshb.wordpress.com/

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?