the cats of Spain
the cats of Spain
drink saucers of Irish whiskey
ears attuned to the
moonlight serenades
of the worshipful
communing along the mahogany
the cats of Spain
prowl on padded feet
down through the centuries
maddening aloof
their tails swish in concert
with the pumping hearts
of those who love them
the cats of Spain
remain untouched by petting hands
feline spines arch
with the promise of pleasure
mischievous cats’ eyes glowing
with an abundance of lives
the cats of Spain
travel America’s chaotic corridors
from Omaha to Alabama
gypsy souls and harmonica paws
follow the music on the breeze
blue futility
seven hundred miles
south of Wrigley Field
on a baseball diamond
atop the second
highest mountain
in Alabama
my five year-old son
crouches near
the third base bag
his glove hovers
an inch from the dirt
and he’s ready for anything
so long as
it’s a softly rolling
ground ball
batting gloves jut
out of his back pocket,
a wad of Big League Chew
hyperextends his cheek
he looks like
a little ball player
except for one thing
“Jared!
where’s your Cubbies cap?”
“no!”
“where’s your Cub’s lid, boy?”
“I hate the Cubbies“
“put on your Cub’s hat
or I’m gonna jump kick you”
“Cubbies suck
I like the Cardinals”
we stand diametrically opposed
across a baseball chasm
wider than the
280 miles
between St Louis and Chicago
and if he’s better off
breaking the cycle now
before chronic defeat
gets its hooks into him
I’ll never admit it
my book collection
I like to think
I have one of the
largest privately owned
book collections in town
perhaps not that impressive
considering I live in a land
populated by folks who
take greatest pride in
their accumulated
college football memorabilia
but I love my wall of books
my wife despises them
“all they do is sit there
what use are they if you’ve
all ready read them?”
but… they’re mine…
I own them…
lying on my bed
surrounded by thousands of books
calmness descends
I ascribe to the Thomas Jefferson
belief in literary universality
as long as it prescribes to fiction
my collection is like your collection
except a hundred times better
and without all the boring authors
name checked by Bukowski
and wonderfully devoid of
over-rated Beatnik writers
my book collection
is better than your book collection
except
you can probably see your books
whereas my collection is obscured
by shower curtains hung by the wife
who believes books look tacky
while shower curtains across an
entire bedroom wall defines elegance
Karl Koweski is a displaced Chicagoan now living on top of a mountain in Alabama. His chapbook of smut, Low Life, is available from www.zygoteinmycoffee.com, where he is also the writer of the monthly column, “Observations of a Dumb Polack.”
