cats – novamartinpoetry.com

Poems

Asleep And Alive

When you

are asleep

I go and

look at

pretty girls

behind a

bar counter

and watch as they

slice the air

with the curves of

their bodies.

And when I am

softly buzzed

I go home,

roll up a joint

and smoke it,

then drive out to that

country road

that heads northeast

out of town

and blast

Pink Floyd’s

“Great Gig In The Sky”

while I think about

my dead cat

and remember how

he was there

to watch me

transition into

a woman

the last year

he was alive.

Poems

In the time
that you loved me
I had done the worst things,
but you continually
asked me,
you called me to love you.
I was a failure many times,
messy, immature,
I wrecked relationships,
broke my heart,
broke many other hearts,
I lied,
mad bad decisions,
treated myself and others poorly.
And yet, over and over,
you crawled on top of me,
butted your furry little head
on my chin
and said,
“I am here, right here,
I am here to love you”.

You
taught me
how
to
love.
You — were a cat.
And you,
are a mother f@#%ing wizard.
You — persist.

Poems

The Oak Tree Down The Block

The oak tree down the block,
diseased and old,
sent the cat,
diseased and old,
on his way.
The tree called me down the street
to take a strip of its bark
back into the house,
so the spell of diseased and old
could be broken.
And then like that,
in a matter of weeks,
the cat whom I had
lived with and loved for
seventeen years
passed away.
Then one day,
eleven days after the cat had died,
the oak tree conveyed unto me
on an afternoon walk;
that those seventeen years
I’d spent living and loving the cat
had been given back to me,
that time doesn’t always work
the way humans think it does.

Poems

When You Had A Tumor

When you had a tumor
I went down to the giant
wizardly oak trees
along the Trinity River
in the center of Fort Worth
and I prayed.
I told the trees there was
someone special to me
who was sick, who needed help,
whom I hoped they would heal.
This was early Spring of 2018
and the trees still had not grown
their leaves or buds.
The trees were dreaming still.
In their dream space
I saw your sister who had passed
and she stood between portals,
showing how time was
multidimensional
and we could move through
the portals.
I envisioned the rings inside the trees
and that through them
we could go back in time
and there in the past,
heal your body,
or at least take it on a different
path of cellular development.
I felt them. Asked them.
They guided me.
This was my first time
encountering the wizardry of trees.
I took two giant acorns
from their basin
and kept them as talismans.
I believe that not only did
these wizard trees
optimize your cellular configuration
but they opened a path in time
that led to our golden years of love,
living out at the country houses together,
watching sunsets,
chasing fire flies through the big field
under moonlight,
holding you like a baby in my arms
in the oak forest,
playing countless guitar songs to you
that you always meowed to,
and you watching me turn from a druid
into a druidess.

Poems

Wiring Around My Heart

In the pet store
two hours after we had sex
a wry smile breaks on my face.
I think about savoring and tasting,
taking in your pussy and your soul,
your moans that release
your reflexes of control
for a moment.
It’s a real pleasure to do that to you.
I can still taste you in my mouth,
breathe you in my nose.
Just the thought of it.
eases my blood pressure,
makes me feel like I’m on vacation.
It rivets my soul.
Makes me know that I’m a woman.
To be a woman is soulful.
Now on aisle twelve
I grab the prescription food
for my sixteen year old
gray-blue kitty cat.
I’m a good cat mom.
I love that little fucker so much.
The two of you
have wiring all around my heart.

Poems

When A Human Loves A Cat

He’s not even my son.

He’s not my flesh and blood.

Not my species or countryman.

He can’t utter a word of human language.

And yet I love him with all my heart and soul,
every ounce of my being.

My strange genetics to his ancient, long genetics,
laid there right across the universe,
side by side in this unfathomable miracle of
the same moment in time.

I say it with courage,
I say it ready to crumble in endless
sentient, fecund melancholy…

I love you Bleuets.

Serve the house of the masters
to destroy the masters,
undo their myths.

The little, mighty cat.

Poems

Star Fields

At night we lay with each other
a human
and a feline
across a place of star fields
we dream

Penthius
Prosthylkass
Zyvar

Places of the endlessly living

Bent fist and paw
we claw
back to mortalhood

With the sun bleaching out
what was known of spirits

we wake to live with
and love each other
not knowing why we love

what has been made amongst
the particles
pronounced in arrangement

Poems

The Corn In Purgatory

It was 2 weeks ago
that I bought this jumbo bag of corn chips.

And in that time…

I’ve cried about 7 times,
most of them gently.
Once, sitting on my back porch,
looking into the woods,
still feeling an unending love for my cat Pinky
who passed away 5 years ago.

I had sex with 2 women and 1 man in that time.

Got drunk 6 times.

Wrote 5 poems and 2 songs and edited some fiction.

Started a new job that is mentally draining.

Threw a birthday party for Pinky’s brother, Blue.

Made 2 new good friends.

Saw a couple old friends I hadn’t seen since
the pandemic started.

Had crème brûlée for breakfast twice.

Ate pickles and olives for dinner once.

Had an upsetting conversation with my mother.

Continued falling in love with a woman
I’ve lusted, loved, and respected for 22 years.

And so I sit here on a Saturday morning
with a beer
and a near empty jumbo bag of corn chips
impressed these chips have lasted me this long
and seen me through so much.