the strawberry plant

a man and woman
his wife

argued

until the woman
plunged through the door

under threat of violence

and wept as she ran
through the surrounding forest

guilt ridden

and soon concerned
he followed her trail

guided

by strawberry plants
in the shapes of footprints

left in her wake

and when he found her
he apologized


and so today we keep a strawberry plant in our home

as a reminder and charm
and we do not fight.

ringing in the 23rd

no need to be coy or clever here. today, sincerity is better served. this is the 3rd time i've hosted the ringing of the bards on somethingkaty. i also orchestrated the wet ringing of the bards not very long ago. i'm not new at this. nevertheless, i am still inspired by the poets who write and submit for these weekly gatherings. i've come to appreciate the ringing of the bards as though it were the blogosphere equivalent of sunday dinner at my mom's house.

considering, too, how near to thanksgiving this ringing comes (albeit a bit late), and considering how much i am truly grateful for right now, let's have ourselves a little feast. this one's not got any turkey though (i'm sure, no matter how much you like turkey, you've had enough by now); instead, let's fill up on poetry!

to start, i had emailed a few of my favorite poets in regards to this particular bards once our mayor billy confirmed my position as bardess (thanks for that title, brian, i love it!). in my email i mentioned the recent drama involving my lovely little kitten (all of 7 months old) Max and his new struggle with cancer. it's been all i've talked about here on somethingkaty the past few weeks, so there's no need for me to detail it again. i would, however, like to ask anyone reading this bards to take a moment and appreciate, with a little more care, the life surrounding them. if you have a pet cat, a dog, a fish, a turtle, or you like to bird watch; take a moment to admire all the joy and beauty in the small living creatures surrounding you. that's my gift to you. what max gave to me. every time i look at him, curled up on the sofa or playing with a bottle cap, i take a moment to appriciate the mere fact that i can see his chest fill and empty evenly with air. just knowing that he's well and playful as a kitten ought to be. and i get to appreciate how much joy and wonder he brings me every moment he's near me.

may sound sappy, but hell, we're poets!!

and now, on with the theivery (oh the what? i thought we were supposed to give thanks?)

i stole a poem from ashraf's blog, but i don't really think he'll mind. he's in france at the moment, having a well deserved holiday with his ummi. (am looking forward to having you back, dear!)

the poem of ashraf's that i borrowed for the carnival is called The Space Below Us. in keeping with the theme of thankfulness, ashraf is one of my favorite people and has influenced my views on poetry, on blogging and on the world. thank you dear. shukran.

next is a special delivery from brian boutwell; another blogging poet who's bond with me reaches beyond the blogosphere. (his blog is extinct now, save for one story; it's a shame if you missed it, but i'm in negotiations with the southern poet to put his work on paper):

FOR L.N. AND L.Z.
Sterling 17 jewels
Illinois pocket
watch, 1926:
____only ticks
if kept wound.

waves come in threes. so do good poets.
and so below are three fine poets with three poems each. three boys who go above and beyond the call of duty.

first in the wave is craig s perez writing out of berkeley. another poet, ah yes, another one, who i've gotten to know and admire. thanks, most graciously, to the lovely yasmin for introducing us both into the wet family.

c.s. sent me 3 poems. don't know if he intended for me to include all three, but here they are (they're not posted on his blog; therefore, the poems appear here at full length. they will be available via chap sooner or later, right craig?)

from "The Ghost of The Harvest Madonna"

1.

Tears of the Madonna, the Hunger and Other Stories: a boy with an allergy to ghosts has trouble with too-logical teachers who say ghosts don’t exist. To celebrate the autumn harvest, the boy claims he had seen his real father’s ghost. When the grains had been collected, the harvest was stored in the silo, but I am saying your vitriol towards Madonna seems out of control. “Madonna Rescues Malawian Child – only 12 Million to Go.” Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky, I ain’t had no lovin’ since January. What the hell is up with the political testimony: the history of how the Sanctuary was built. Ghost nights; God visited his garden; Machine harvest; for what I am and what I harvest through my suffering. Madonna of the Ridge Road. Machines seize the soil.

2.

I’ve got you walking with a ghost. Not tonight, let it be. On Monday Monday Monday. I shall have to quickly immerse myself in an orgy of Madonna listening, much like a harvest festival really. Ghost of Perdition. According to tradition, every night the ghost in the statue of the Madonna is decorated with precious dresses. It might be OK to show Madonna hanging on a mirrored cross, in vernacular tantrums. Halfway through the soup course, the boy recognized the Ghost and invited him to sit and help out with the harvest season on the moisture farm.

3.

In a nutshell, the Harvest plays like grand theft auto: playfulness (‘blanket-vision’ or the godawful-creepy) fell flat. The Harvest as the sultry blonde who likes to dance. When you think about it, Madonna is the most ridiculous lawmaker. “The boy wants to shoot Madonna into space.” BEST. HEADLINE. EVER. Hell, I'd even contribute to the slush fund, provided they agree not to bring to mind ‘trans-humanist identity experience’. Special gratitude is offered to the boy.

the second wave in the pack is made of stone. a strictly mysterious fella with a warm heart and a soft spot for kittens, he's sent me three poems about cats in honor of max and this particular ringing of the bards.

Twelve Cats

Coal-eyed Friend

& Our Wanderer Returns about stone's little kitten Blinky who, it would seem, had quite the adventure just the other day!

and the third wave is from none other than our man Russell Ragsdale of Yuckelbel's Canon. much like his poems, every encounter with Russell is an enjoyable moment. and you're always an eager and willing participant for my ringings, aren't you Russell? ^_^

Brighter and Wiser

Somnambulist

& Recriminations

the wave is over, but we still have three poets to be thankful for...

Keith of When I Wax provides me with an appropriately titled Host Meditation (also called "Breadchewing"). Keith brings the bread and musings to compliment. a perfect piece for a poetic feast, without a doubt.

next, the man who makes this whole party possible, Billy! without his dedication and enthusiasm for bringing poets together, there'd be no ringing and no call for celebrating one another's work. i certainly am, and i'm sure everyone else within our blogging poet community feels similar if not the same, truly grateful for everything you do for us and everything you do for the art.

our mayor Billy the Blogging Poet supplies a seg-way in to the up-coming holiday season with Christmas, Stuck on Red. and as always, billy amuses to no end.

last but certainly not least... i don't know if you noticed, but there's nothing but male bodies around the table... until Shirley steps up!
unfortunately though, the link she sent me in her email required a password, so i'm not sure exactly which poem she meant for me to host here. instead of just one then, and to help balance this party out a little, here are 3 (it's a thematic number, at this point) of Shirley's most recent poems!

Ocean View

Warm Thoughts

& Giving Thanks

and before i leave you to the next host (by the way, there is no next host lined up, so if you want to play, billy at idleblogs (at) yahoo.com), i just want to say thank you. thank you for reading, for submitting, for caring.

affectionately yours. bardess.


addendum: the last day by shirley of housemouse. this is the poem she had intended for the ringing. thank you shirley!

last call

am taking sudmissions for the 23rd ringing of the bards all night

-

the ringing will be rung tomorrow morning

(whenever i happen to roll out of bed)

TWENTY THREE

i will be hosting the up-and-coming ringing of the bards: episode 23!

please email your submissions to:
kaacheson @ yahoo . co . uk (less the spaces)

ryan got his today

po'et'ship: latest post.

if it's not one thing, it's the other

a brief update on max's condition and other things pertaining:

he's doing alright. we were a bit worried monday when we woke up to a few separate piles of kitty throw up, and he was acting very tired again. the vet told us not to worry when i spoke to her, and he went in for some more fluids this afternoon. we're being very cautious with him, obviously. every move he makes we watch. both out of concern and gratitude for still having him. we want anything but to take him granted; especially now.

while max is on the slow and bumpy road to getting well, ryan is all sorts of aching and ouchy. he's in bed now, trying to sleep and had to take the day off work. i hope he doesn't have anything like what he had in february. that was a miserable month for him, and for me.

hugs for both my boyos (((max))) & (((ryan)))

as for me, i just have a little head cold - nothing that's going to stop me or even really slow me down.

and have been reading the lovely mina loy and some past simple.

read coconut poetry for fun

coconut poetry

plentiful on sweet

lance of 3by3by3 emailed me a few weeks ago (was it even that long ago?) and introduced me to his little project wherein poets write one poem consisting of 3 stanzas 3 lines each and composed of (in terms of content) 3 news articles from google news on any one day. and so, i participated.

the poem is up and can be reached by clicking the title to this post. do enjoy.

yes, more about max

today he's been eating both his wet food and his dry food (yay). he didn't put up too much resistance to the pill he has to have shoved down his throat once every day. he's been a bit more active today than yesterday still. he's sleeping a bit less and seems more interested in ryan and my activities. right now he is being cute, playing with a little spring i found in the basement.
he's looking a lot less scraggly and scruffy too, which is great. he's such a handsome kitty. no pictures for this post, although i took a couple of cute ones of max and ryan watching an old bond film. i'll post those some other time.
'tis all. he's still doing well, and our spirits are high.

in other news, ryan bought the last three wii-motes from bestbuy today. wii seems more popular than nintendo anticipated? or just the retailers? i'm very much looking forward to fishing in the new zelda and bowling ^_^

kitty =^_^= update

happy saturday all. yesterday max spent 6 hours at the vet's. he got his first full dose of chemo, some more fluids, and ryan and i got given some pills to give him once a day for the rest of the week. max will be going in again on wednesday for some blood work and again on friday for his next full dose of chemo.

max doesn't has have leukemia according to the blood work done. he might have it in his bone marrow, but if that's then case (and we're hoping it's not) than there's nothing we'd be able to do for him because you can only treat the leukemia or the lymphoma, not both. just diagnosis for bone marrow leukemia is about $300, which we're not keen on having done to beginning with, so we're going with the lymphoma treatment full on and praying for the best.

also, found out that he weighs 5lbs9oz - he's so little.

when we brought him home last night he was sticky and smelly and tired and feeble. i was nervous about his condition. he was the epitome of pathetic. ryan and i just let him sleep though, and went to see my dad for his birthday. we came home and he was still sleeping.

at some point in the night max must have gotten up and ate some of his canned food, which is great. as ryan and i started getting out of bed, max came out from under the bed too. he stretched and we could tell right away that he was looking better. he seemed to have cleaned himself over night too. he'd been looking really scruffy. he looks a little scruffy still, but much less so.


max ate more food when he got up. he followed us down stairs and even had some cheese with me this morning.

he's looking pretty good. he seems well. definatly not any worse at least.


i'll continue to keep everyone updated via my blog.

as of right now, max is playing with an ant.

p.s. for poetry, go to piloteye

more on max

so my blog's turned into a journal about max, almost like a "normal" blog. this is partially due to the fact that i haven't been writing very much along the lines of poetry, so i haven't anything to post. i can't force myself to write in extremely emotional movements. i don't write poetry for therapy and i don't write good poetry when i'm sad or upset or anxious. i did write two rather unhappy poems on piloteye a few days ago. and there's still buttons up at the wet. also, for poetry-related reading, c.s. has been revealing the recidivist manifesto over the past few days... part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4 (with more to come).

nothing as really changed with max over the past few days. yesterday i took him to the vet so they could do some blood work. they're testing him for leukemia again. i'm not sure how much will change for our situation if he does have leukemia, but i know that it will change things; there'll be that one other thing to fix.

he's quiet, tired, a little bit scruffy and he's unfriendly towards anyone but ryan and i. my sister meg was over last night along with her boyo chris and my brother mike to celebrate my birthday. when meg went to pet max he hissed at her and wet upstairs under the bed.

he is going to the bathroom regularly, which is important. he's eating. he even had some of his dry food last night. he is still spitting up a lot though, which is causing him to be dehydrated. yesterday at the vet they had to give him some liquids via injection. he's not drinking water to compensate for the spitting up. i tried to mix some chicken broth to his water, but that didn't seem to interest him one bit. maybe later i'll try beef broth. he's not like a child who we could verbally force to drink anything. max just doesn't want to drink his water, no matter what flavor it is.

so today i am to drop him off at the vet's at noon time, and he's going to get his first dose of chemo. they're going to keep him there fore a few hours to watch for any reactions (positive or negative). and so i guess i'll let you all know later today if he has leukemia or not. other than that, i don't think much is going to change right away.

lymphoma was the good news

okay, where do i start?

the end i guess... maxerodenfoe has kitty cancer.

on friday i took him to the vet to be neutered. i mentioned over the phone a few days prior that he didn't seem to be feeling very well. he'd been spitting up clear colorless bile and seemed to be sleeping a lot. because of this, instead of being neutered, the vet saw him for an exam. the first assumption was that he may have eaten something he shouldn't have... like string or a hair elastic like the one that had recently gone missing. so an x ray was needed.

i waited around, nervous as ever over max's little tummy.

once the x rays came back the vet started explaining the x ray to me. his tummy and intestines were perfectly fine. but in his upper chest there was white where there was meant to be black - fluid where there was meant to be air. at least... she thought it was fluid.

assuming what was in max was fluid the vet asked to keep max for the morning into the afternoon to take a sample from his chest to see if it was internal bleeding or if perhaps max had this awful thing called f.i.p.. i called ryan, all choked up and he came right home from work. at that moment is when we both began thinking max might have to be put down, and at such a young age (he's only just turned 7 months old). we waited impatiently, nervously, for the vet's reply by phone. more than anything we wanted to bring max home and have him with us.

my phone rang at a little before 3pm. the vet told me that she was "mystified" by max. the white in his chest was not fluid, it is a hard mass.

we went to pick max up at 4. the vet had had to shave a couple square inches of fur of either side of him just behind his front legs. he was tired, his tail was flared. he was not a happy kitty. we were so pleased to have him home though, even though we didn't know what was going on.



the vet said she would take his x rays to a clinic near by and send the small fluid sample she got out of max to a pathology lab.

on saturday morning the vet called us. she's dedicated so much to figuring out what's wrong with our little orange kitten. i already owe he so much gratitude. she called to let us know that she'd spoken to another vet. between the two of them, and having had a look at the fluid sample, they thought, despite his young age, that max might have one of two types of cancer. one of them was lymphoma. this is treat-able by drug treatments and costs only $1000 (or less) over the course of a full year and has considerably high success rates for putting the cancer into remission so that the animal can live a regular life, albeit short. the second kind was one that required radiation treatment and would cost a considerable amount more, never mind the fact that our lovely vet had never dealt with this second kind of kitty cancer.

she said, on saturday that we'd hear something on tuesday. we did. the pathology exam came back positive for lymphoma. the pathologist made a note, though, to test max for leukemia to confirm the diagnosis. it is extremely rare for a cat of max's age to have such a significant amount of cancer in his chest at such a young age, or even to get this type of cancer.

she called to find out from me if ryan and i were interested in trying the drug treatment and i told her defiantly yes.

so she's going to do some research, some talking around, and will have a word with the pathologist and give me a call back tomorrow.

max is going to start his treatment on friday as well as get his leukemia test (again... he cleared it at his first visit, but these tests ate 100% accurate).

max, right now, is sleeping nearly all of the day. he's eating, but only a tiny bit at a time. he's been taking antibiotics as a precaution against any infection that may have been introduced during his vet visit last friday where some fluid sample was extracted. he's so tired though... and loosing a little weight on account of not playing and not eating as much. he responds to being called, he comes downstairs to be with us when he has the energy, and he cuddles with us when he can.

we're hoping and praying that he responds to the treatment. it's so hard for both of us to see him like this. at lest today though, we know what he has and we know that we can do something for him.

anyone that's talked to me over the past few days knows how upset i've been and how stressed i've been over this.

... wibble passing away was even harder for me to take on account of everything that's gone on with our darling little kitten.

so your happy wishes are appreciated. just keep max in the back of your mind. he needs all the happy warm kitty vibes he can get right now.






and ryan gave this to me tonight, which i forwarded to some of you already... it made me laugh so hard i cried. and it's been a while since i laughed.
cats

elegy

there's a shallow euphony
where the sound of bubbles
and life once resonated

we buried him out back
with the daffodil bulbs

brief update

wibble is really really sick
max is really really sick
and i have these two papers started that i can't concentrate on enough to get past the first page of either.

will give everyone the details on max's situation tuesday, once we know better what's actually going on and maybe what's going to happen.

(buttons)

po'et'ship

NEW POST ON THE 'SHIP
W/ BONUS LEONARD COHEN POEM!!!!

thank you so much, ashraf dear!

i'll email you later in the day

max is sick
wibble is sick
and i have to go to class

(-_-)

for blog's sake

am entangled in two separate and equally interesting papers at the moment. nothing monumental. one is a response to a couple of articles concerning the relationship between colonialism and the rise of English language as a dominant, global commodity. the other is a reaction to a wretched triangle; to which i am proposing a more intricate and optical approach to teaching writing and rhetoric to freshmen college students.

and because i'm entangled, i have not had the functionability(tm) to 'think poetry'. instead, my blog, for a short while, will be reduced to katy ramblings and the potential show-case of at least one of the previously mentioned papers.

because i am unable to produce for you an original work, and hate to leave you writhing... below is a poem by the incomprehensibly magnific Albert Mobilio...

Ground Swell

They threw in the towel, they burnt
the notes. The chairs were folded up, the microphone

unplugged. After the questionnairs were collected,
we mopped the linoleum floor--the sickening smears

were rubbed into ever-thinning arcs. I watched
from behind the bandstand as the Pinnacle kids

draped the Contact Mirror that hours before
had shivered under the assault of

one thousand flashlights. Another root worked
into the soil; the encirclement's nearly done.

Outside, the men smoked as their exhalations
thickened under the awning. Everywhere, the salt

smell of bodies revved up, ready to flare. Voices,
hoarse and sated, rode a damp breeze. When the stick

is crooked, someone said. Our sting will then
be felt, I sang back, each word familiar

as the sore in my mouth my tongue can't leave
alone. Cars started, headlights bit

into the gloom at this, the furthest verge,
where a cure will soon take hold.

from Me With Animal Towering

"feathers"

thank you scott!!!

feathers by scott glassman of 30 Days: poems.

post craze

because i've been posting all day, i thought hey, why not another one?

this one has three points:

1: happy birthday lauren!!!

2: thanks for the lovely conversation, brian. we shall definitely again.

3: saw Borat with a big crowd. laughed lots. go see it.

an indefinable moment

in the darkest corner
of the living room

where the goldfish
wakes and forgets us

for all but a feeding
the warm air swells up

with pregnancy and urgency
in every unread book

and i abandoned them
for you and the sunlight

for that stubborn cat
sleeping in the laundry

or the broken down
curtains i have yet to repair

and as i lay in the square
of the orange autumn wealth

the family of geese
on the coast of the bog

keep you awake beside me
and unprotected

from the impatience to move
towards the top button of my blouse

and

thank you for this article, ashraf my dear.

bookmark

chance operations


lately and without noticing, i have been inclined towards a more violent, coarse kind of poetry. this violence and toughness is not necessarily a bad quality. i had been drawn to the raw, the ripe, the uninhibited, the passionate. to the overindulgence of animal behavior. not just sex either. to the sensations of deep internal pain, love, confusion, dirt, dry rain and other non-refined goods.

to the surprising turns within a poem. i had been engaged in this spike and thrash of poetry.

what i woke up to find today was myself un-drugged for the first time in what feels like far too long and the "chance operations". i read it silently, without moving my lips. [i often read poetry with my lips, not just my eyes; i prefer to sound it out.]

it reads fluently, one poem to the next. the audio files are charming and the images warm and fluid.

the zen aesthetic.

part of the charm, is in the poets that participate. there's something untouchable. the poets do not push against one another, do not play off one another, do not change each other, do not compete with one another. instead, there's an ebb and flow of translation, transition and fluid communication. they're like a school of monks [/poets] scattered throughout a beautiful garden [/blog]. as you stroll [/scroll] you find them hiding behind the big rocks and under the cherry trees.

radclyff's secret

on pilot eye

September Cohen

a few things: one, he's one handsome canadian.

i love both the female interviewers in these videos. i don't know if it was the zeitgeist or if it's to do with the superiority of canadian television or if it's a reflection on leonard's character that both the women are asking such motivated and challenging questions. whatever the variable though, the mere fact that they were discussion poetry in a mass-medium is heartwarming for me.

also, part of the reason why i think leonard takes the criticism on Beautiful Losers so lightly is because he knew that they were all short-sighted. the book has seen its second cover design and been translated into several languages--among them chinese. it's an astounding piece of literature, in my opinion, and i recommend everyone read it. as for it being pornographic, yes. no question. but, it's so human in context and so genuinely emotive.

the muddened bird

a meditation for a wednesday

a single pomegranate seed
tethered to its beak

at the moment of most credulity
an owl finch landed -

__one weak foot
___in the mud -

at the side of the road -
the one i limped in on

at the morning's call -
for neutrality or passion
i cried him into staying
that extra minute

and it was worth it
(our new mythology)

loosing the secret
to a friend

- the smell of the hemiptera
or the taste of medicine -

my tea factory
my affect - ness

refusing to disguise the lines
from what they really are

the bird's red cheeks
stained or blushed

from fruit or from honesty
still has one foot stuck in the ground