It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,

     Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,

Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—

     All of them sensible everyday names.

There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,

     Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:

Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—

     But all of them sensible everyday names,

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,

     A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

     Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,

     Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,

Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—

     Names that never belong to more than one cat.

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,

     And that is the name that you never will guess;

The name that no human research can discover—

     But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

     The reason, I tell you, is always the same:

His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

     Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

          His ineffable effable

          Effanineffable

Deep and inscrutable singular name.

Aleksandra Waliszewska – Mitusia

#poetry #art

All Greece reviles the wan face when she smiles, hating it deeper still when it grows wan and white, remembering past enchantments and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved, God's daughter, born of love, the beauty of cool feet and slenderest knees, could love indeed the maid, only if she were laid, white ash amid funereal cypresses.

#poetry #art

Pablo Picasso Girl in a Chemise c.1905

#poetry #art

an injured fan.        The barnacles which encrust the side        of the wave, cannot hide               there for the submerged shafts of the

sun, split like spun        glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness        into the crevices—               in and out, illuminating

the turquoise sea        of bodies. The water drives a wedge        of iron through the iron edge               of the cliff; whereupon the stars,

pink rice-grains, ink-        bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green        lilies, and submarine               toadstools, slide each on the other.

All external        marks of abuse are present on this        defiant edifice—               all the physical features of

ac- cident—lack        of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and        hatchet strokes, these things stand               out on it; the chasm-side is

dead. Repeated        evidence has proved that it can live        on what can not revive               its youth. The sea grows old in it.

“It will begin again. 200,000 dead and 80,000 wounded in nine seconds. Those are the official figures. It will begin again. It will be 10,000 degrees on the earth. Ten thousand suns, people will say. The asphalt will burn. Chaos will prevail. An entire city will be lifted off the ground, and fall back to earth in ashes…

I meet you. I remember you. Who are you? You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I like you. How unlikely. I like you. How slow all of a sudden. How sweet. You cannot know. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I have time. Please, devour me. Deform me to the point of ugliness. Why not you?”