The Samurai Cat

The Samurai Cat

For Jean-Luc Picard, The Cat.

The other day some lilies
almost
killed my cat,
and rilke
sent me a note :
“Beauty is the beginning of the terror”
how timely I thought.

All that
as one would
expect,
shook me.

I was worried about my cat dying
and I was confronted by my ego
(I thought I am good with death)
and fear of living alone,
was not a pleasant one either.
(It’s just me and the cat in this house,
and now Albert Camus the absurd aquatic moss)

but the cat is alive
and all that agony has passed,
and I have learned that lilies kill kitties.
So as a form of cleansing myself
from the death,
i cleaned my house.
as I was mopping the floors
I thought,
— If there’s a coming back to this life
in another form;
I would like to come back
as a Samurai Cat.

and if in that life
I must commit suicide
as a form a capital punishment,
for I am a ne’er-do-well,
a rogue cat
and have licked my ass
in front of the emperor
or because I have meowed
at the wrong empress.
I will not cry.

I will accept my punishment,
put down my sword,
Bow once more to the Buddha,
Unrobe,
and go lay among field of lilies
waiting for
my next journey
and hope to come back
As poet
To a clean house,
or slice of sweet
and delicious cantaloupe
on your plate.