All things have gotten ahead of themselves this year. A while ago, taking the cooler air of late night while the dimmed moonlight made vague suggestions of flowers and house fronts, I realized that the crickets have grown few far sooner than in most years. Perhaps consumed by the abundant birds, they have left a void where their songs would be, have deprived the July darkness of its accustomed rhythm. It's odd to hear so few of them so early in the season, their distant chirps intermittent, the breeze then humming in the pines alone.
I think my cat must have gotten in a fight. She spent yesterday afternoon in a corner of the back yard, napping a bit but often awake and looking mournful. She came in late, moving slowly, and ate little. At first I thought she might be sick from devouring lizards, but after she slept a while she spent several minutes grooming herself, and I noticed that her fur was matted in several places as it sometimes is when she has gotten scratches or bites. She has continued to be indolent, napping in her favorite chair, but both awake and still much of the time, staring at nothing in the manner of cats. I hope she doesn't develop abscesses as she often does following an altercation with another cat. She's really getting much too old for that sort of behavior. But she is a strange little beast, and unlikely to change her ways. So near wild is her temperament that I'm surprised she consents to live with humans at all.
It is to be hotter again today, which means I might turn on the air conditioner for a while this evening. Sluggo will be pleased.
Sunday Verse
The Lemonade Panel
by Gilbert Sorrentino
The report has come from the panel of tasters
telling us what we always knew. Everyone loves
the product made false to taste true.
Browsing. Such footnotes! Apparatus located
precisely yet with abandon. Great fields
of scarlet poppies. Good to be alive!
Situated behind this tireless grinning
is a curious world that has not lost its mind
for there was no mind: the images are war images.
The report is virginal and disaffiliated.
Objective. Cutting us down in swaths
with rootless words all antiseptic.
Meanwhile the poets are "healed
for a few dollars" and pass through each other
in gossipy vapors. Their trees are always blue.
The dark world this iron world
is but a ruptured Coney Island
ruled by that great smiling fiend.
Smiles but little laughter and data
that give little comfort or delight.
Bright headbands worn for . . . something.
By Christ they like this report they approve
they smile sang froid all mist and little jokes.
They're all right. This is the world.
