Cats
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned
To rules or routes for journeys; counter
Attack with non-resistance; twist
Enticing through the curving fingers
And leave an angered empty fist.
They wait obsequious as darkness
Quick to retire, quick to return;
Admit no aim or ethics; flatter
With reservations; will not learn
To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
A. S. J. Tessimond
How he envies them their mode of resistance.
A biography of Tessimond.
One of my favorite older movies caught exquisitely well by Susan Herbert, from her Movie Cats, Brief Encounter: “A Brief Tail of Love:”
Herbert has a long section of dramatic romance movies. When I tried to find poetry about movies I remember how disappointed I was because so little was on women’s movies — including the women’s poetry (are they ashamed?); and what was there, crude, buying into stupidest appetitive myths. The interest of this print, is that Herbet drops the silver tint so strong in her film noir cat parodies, and substitutes a sort of green-greys, colors coming in. It’s not film noir but about thwarted fulfillment. The tails are ropes to the side. I noticed her clutching the library book (she would go to the library on her day out), a folder, their holding hands, his hat and think it’s exquisitely eloquent about more than the movie but the movie itself centrally. She has something about Celia Johnson in her face; but the male cat lacks Trevor Howard’s grimness of expression.
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 