Sunday, November 16, 2008

cat & poem lovers

Rating:★★★
Category:Other
for my cat & poem lovers
"A poem is a thing
that i decide is a poem
after I write it
as a poem or nopoem
but publish it as a poem
now decide again what's a poem."

David Avidan

I start thinking he was a snob for a reason.
ilanka

4 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for the poem, Ilanka. I was a bit sorry to discover, it had no cats in it. Typical poem by Avidan, a man afflicted with a sense of cosmic importance and a rediculously inflated self confidence. But also fascinating. While Baudelaire, a man more humble, has a nice cat poem, maybe I can find it in English on the net. Wait and see!

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  2. The Cat by Charles Baudelaire


    Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;
    Hold back the talons of your paws,
    Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes
    Of metal and agate.


    When my fingers leisurely caress you,
    Your head and your elastic back,
    And when my hand tingles with the pleasure
    Of feeling your electric body,


    In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze
    Like your own, amiable beast,
    Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart,


    And, from her head down to her feet,
    A subtle air, a dangerous perfume
    Floats about her dusky body.


    — William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

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  3. i am waiting.
    will try to write a little cat poem especially for you.

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  4. Maybe there is a cat in Avidan's poem after all. Recall Heisenberg's principal of indeterminacy? Remember Schrodinger's cat? It's about a disjuctional cat that could be dead and alive at the same time if it is linked to a subatomic event that may or may not take place. Like in Avidan's poem, the poem may or may not be a poem if it is attached to Avidan's whims and vagaries of mood and emotion.

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