"Dogs have owners, Cats have staff."

          


This Might Be About My Cats

My house mates are Winston, who is Joel Grey in Cabaret

And Oliver, a Buddhist monk in meditation

Occasionally they mix it up when Winston decides to

Interrupt Oliver’s annoying calm

For the most part tho’, they lay about like fine Dresden

Sculptures, superior in their artfulness

When I go into the kitchen for anything,

They mystically appear and stare at me until

Compelled, I top off each food bowl- not a meow

Need be uttered

I adopted the masters on a cold December night

Each had his own appeal and

I could not choose between them

Winston, the elder, was four months old

and his brother, Oliver Twist was two months

of fluffy kitten cuteness

Winston, sleek grey with white spats and ascot

struck me as properly British, the shelter had named

him Giorgio, but I could see that he was no way Italian

And who names a kitten Sea Breeze? Really?!

Oliver Twist, a dusky tortoise shell looked every bit

the gutter snipe

It’s been a year and a half-in that time Oliver has receded

deep into Buddhist meditation and Winston has

channeled his high strung persona into a perfect Joel Grey

in Cabaret

His voice demands attention and he is the playful tease who

engages both Oliver and me

There are only two of them, they cannot procreate

The rule is: A woman must have three cats to be a crazy

old cat woman

I have only two- you do the math- I am simply a

Blank- blank woman with a couple

British roommates-one is a gentleman and the other?

Certainly a bloke/ born again Buddhist!

RMK 11/June/2015 ©

Having Coffee with the Folks

Mid-afternoon I crave good strong coffee

with cream

This has been going on only a few months

Most of my life (since age 10) I took

my coffee unadulterated, black

like my mother

One day Pop’s smiling face

occurred to me and I realized

I am being punked by ghosts!

Of course the coffee additives

are mom’s version of healthy:

coconut milk and coconut oil

and a scant teaspoon of honey

She knew I’d never totally

abandon what she taught me

He won’t mind, the taste is

somewhat close to the thick

Guernsey cream he stirred into

his afternoon fix-and so,

Here we are in afternoon

communion-me remembering

them and them probably having

a good laugh at me

There may only be a thin veil

between us, however, they are

very much felt and present

and that makes me smile…

RMK, 15 June 2015, © 

Am I there, yet?

        

When Things Go My Way

When things go my way, I shall have a dog named

Shakespeare, who will lie, sprawled on a fine Arabic

Rug of intricate design, in front of

a brick fireplace, next to my old dark wood

rocking chair, sleeping soundly as I read

 classic Anais Nin erotica, the phone

on a small marble table, unplugged

cannot ring

When things go my way, I shall stroll

along a sunny beach, Shakespeare

romping by my side

taking time out every once in awhile

to chase seagulls down to the surf

then dashing back to me for

a reassuring pat and scratch

behind his ear

Barefoot, I’ll race him to the waters edge

and wince a little as the ice cold water

kisses my aging feet

When things go my way, I’ll sit at my library table,

by a crackling fire in a beloved beach house,

silver braided hair, a lean, fit body in denim jeans

topped by a soft flannel shirt

writing some provocative poetry or

perhaps a sage review, on a

yellow tablet, a cup of pungent coffee

beside my scribbling hand

When things go my way, I’ll lie out in my rope hammock

Shakespeare cuddled beside me, daydreaming

in the warm sun, a breeze gently rocking us

to and fro, the ocean’s whisper soothing our ears

Then Shakespeare will break the peace with an excited bark,

as a figure approaches…then delighted, robust laughter

as an agile, silver-haired man, joins the dog and me

for a swing in the hammock, too…

When things go my way, the sun will set on three in a

hammock and there will be peace, love and much joy…

when things go our way…

 From chapbook: Love Roulette by Rainy Knight aka raintreepoet. :-)

The Sky

Prompt: Go outside. Stare at the sky. Write about what you see.

The Sky

13 June 2015

The sky is cloudless. No mean feat in this part of the northwest

where grey skies are the norm and usually the sky is chock full of clouds

Clouds! Where the hell are you? Without you, the sky is a big blue void!

Note: it is rimmed in pale blue gradating to white

which suddenly reminds me of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”

playing on the juke box at Jake’s Café, East side, Olympia,

June 1967, where I was a waitress (first job off the farm)

and when my shift was done, going with a “regular” who

was divorced and twice my age at 36, handsome in a Dick Clark

 kinda way, to a city park and smooching for a good long time

He may have thought it was foreplay, but

I was 18, and to me, it was making out

As he (for the life of me, I cannot remember his name)

built up a head of steam, panting and shoving his hands where

 they did not belong, I was saved by a plaintive meowing

in the bushes

I jumped out of his car and went in search of

the owner of the meow, the mood interrupted,

he quickly followed

We managed to find a scruffy little kitten

(which I cannot for the life of me remember what

it looked like)

Resigned, he offered to take me back to my car

I cuddled the kitten all the way

As I said good night, he smiled and asked

what I would call the kitten- I replied something

inane like “Fluffy”, but in my mind I knew

it was God…

The sky is still cloudless, but a darker, richer shade of blue.

RMK June 2015 ©

If-By Rudyard Kipling

To June Graduates:

                                                                                                                       

    

   (Born December 30, 1865;

 Died January 17, 1936) 

 If you can keep your head when all about you

 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;                 

 IF you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

 But make allowance for their doubting too:

 If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,

 Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies

 Or being hated don’t give way to hating

 And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise

 If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

 If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

 If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

 And treat those two imposters just the same:

 If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

 Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

 Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

 And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

 If you can make one heap of all your winnings

 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

 And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

 And never breathe a word about your loss:

 If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

 To serve your turn long after they are gone,

 And so hold on when there is nothing in you

 Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

 If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

 Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

 If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

 If all men count with you, but none too much:

 If you can fill the unforgiving minutes

 With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

 Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Note from raintreepoet: Man as in short for human

Marketing 101

It started with my daughter, Misty, looking out my back door     

at the moss- covered patio and encroaching flora and deciding

“I am going to power wash your patio and trim your hedge as

a belated Mother’s Day present!”

“Okay, who’s going to turn that down? Haven’t considered it

before, but what the hey?”

She arrives with a big set of power clippers and a power washer

and I am impressed! Who taught my kid to do this man chore,

anyway?

In a morning, she opens up and brings light and sunshine to my

 formerly dank,,tiny little patio.

A few days later, I am looking out there, admiring her work

and I think about it returning to its former dank jungle state and in a

phone conversation, Misty suggests I seal the patio. She recommends

picking up a concrete sealant at my local hardware store.

Sealed, the moss won’t grow back and that small fact comforts me.

Then I begin to see how nice it would be to have a little table and

chairs out there, like in a little bistro in Paris, having my tea or

coffee or wine and sitting in the pleasant breeze with a book or

writing pad enjoying the ambiance of a lazy summer day.

So, I go online to see if I can find a bistro set at a reasonable price.

I am gratified to find a set on sale (or so I believe) for $110.

Free shipping. Wow! I am only too  eager to order the cute bistro

set, immediately and put it on my credit card. After all, the total with

tax is only $119.24. What a deal! It has a celebrity name of someone

who’s taste I’ve been pleased with in the past, so the photo of the set

is enough to convince me.

After only the bistro table arrives, I call the company. Ann, the customer

service lady tells me that she is sorry, that the chairs were just "display" and

they would be another hundred bucks! She pardons herself and puts me on

hold. Meanwhile I go back online and see the photo of the table and chairs

and sure enough underneath the illustration is the statement offering only

the table! I am adequately miffed! I begin to think, ‘when I get off the phone,

I am writing a complaint on YELP.’

As I am looking at it longer, I see that the price is $139.99 for the set of chairs.

(She may have set  a timer.)  Ann comes back on the line and says, “Sorry

for the misunderstanding, but usually that set is $139.99, however, I am going to

offer it to you for $100. and free shipping.”

Well, that’s better, I think. All the while, knowing that if I could have talked

with a human being in the first place, this whole incident would not have

happened.

Psychologically I have been outmaneuvered. Now I will take the deal offered

even though I feel played and I am spending almost double the money, which

makes it not that great of a deal and to add insult to my injury, as beautiful as

the granite topped table is, there is clearly a decal on it that reads: Made in

China and I feel double duped because this multi-national company has made

me a traitor to my own culture!

A Traveler in Spook Country

I was navigating with The Skin Map given me

by Omega Sol

He did not include instructions for Deep Survival

so the arrows and stones rained down on me

I felt like an Imprisoned Guest  

on The Path to Love

The Stuff of Thought, it t was apparent to me

would not be helpful in my

Rehearsal for Love but, intuitively I know

if I just let my emotions flow

I shall soon be singing A Sunday Serenade

to my own true love-and so it goes

And isn’t that the way it is? When we face

our greatest fears, they evaporate up and away

Into the atmosphere

Spook Country is a myth, good Traveler

Just keep walking

There is no script for life

It is all Improv

It is all Improv

It is all Improv

Poof!!

By Rainy Knight-

Constructed at Christopher Luna request to find

ten book titles at Cover to Cover Bookstore and

create a poem-April 2013

Success according to Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is dedicated to all those June graduates who are considering careers based on money and not seeing the bigger picture because they are young. Time, hopefully, will be their greatest teacher.

“Those are a

                    SUCCESS

Who have

Lived well, laughed often and loved much; who have gained the respect of intelligent people and the love of children; who have filled their niche and accomplished the task; who leave the world better than they found it, whether by a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of the earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best they had.”

                                                                -Emerson