Five Prose Poems by Richard Weaver

 

Cat with nine tails

 

was born in a rocking chair factory one moonless October night. Now lives in a proper house without corners, with curved windows etched with a ghostly murmurations of starlings. Complete with carpeted sleeping ledges in a neighbourhood rid of fleas and canines and graced with bow-legged free-ranging glow-in-the-dark mice who amble fearless without tails, whiskers, or eyelids, and are catnip scented. Cat with 9 tails purrs a tall tale story in a short time, masterful in delivery, without toll or weak taille. No Dickens he. No Tail of two kitties. More sardine induced drama than dream but cut from the kind of teal tulle you can get your claws into. Feathers fly without wings. The sun hides in the garage, fearful of toiling overtime. The video version is available online. Cat with nine tails is no one’s tool.

 

Rock Rat has rolled out

 

in the bigger cities, those with unsustainable populations and a deaf-by-decibels wish. Loudest is the new black hole of sound. Not Disaster Area, planet destroying loud, or Kiss, Manowar, Gallows, Leftfield, Motorhead, Deep Purple, The Who, Led Zeppelin eardrum denting loud. All Guinness record gate-crashing worthy. Rock Rat loud ranges from 200 Hz to 90 kHz. It’s call kilohertz after-all. Ultrasound. Only dolphins and bats hear better. Only very young humans can hang near 20 kHz. But not always. To keep teenagers from gathering in public squares, the French play sounds only young ears can hear, which create headcheese and dissing, or headaches and dizziness. Dogs and cats are none too happy either. But French rats, the ones who boarded ships from Norway to see and conquer the world, are amused by local buzz, and have risen from the sewers in search of croissants and baguettes. They may be modern survivors, ancient descendants of those who presence wrongly meant Black Plague. Now, they troll the parks like tourists, wearing headphones, or earbuds. The more daring go wireless. None give a damn about the EU underground traps. Most have a better tan than the overly ripe Orange Dollop.

 

Iatrogenics

 

They are never here when needed and somehow not present when standing in the same room with you. They may shrug if asked a question. Or tilt their heads in unison. But they will never answer. Not a word, not a groan passes a lip. If they blush it is not when light is looking. It is unclear whether they ever sleep or indulge in discrete bodily functions. Somehow it is impossible to count them without your eyes crossing. What purpose is theirs? What designs, if any, do they have? If they could speak, would they? Can they also die of boredom and loneliness? Or are they immune to this world and its diseased follies, its’ manifest idiocies? They are what they are  where they go. Here where they are, you are also. Also being an explanation of time without. Without memory. Without doubt doubled. But with emphatic simplicity. 

 

Manx Rat

 

was born without but might have had a stubs of a tail. It just depends on the line and randomness. It’s not a honour to be named after a cat. But what’s to be done? He’s talked to tailed rats who have no trouble crossing electrical lines or even narrower coax. Their tails provide balance and keep life interesting above ground. Mr. Manx knows better than to rope walk. He rightly dismisses thermoregulation as a word with no meaning to his particular life, though perhaps to others. As a buck he is heavy with the thought of himself. Had he a wife she would say, he needs be weighted and tossed into a canal to increase his lung capacity. No ethics required there. This is a health issue. Either he grow a pair of gills quickly, or become  chum. Clearly the romantic. She being wise, knows that tail lessness is a genetic abnormality, and not a step forward. And, as such, it should not be encouraged. Hormones and love be damned. There’s a reason no manx live on the Isle of Man where even longtails are thought to be bad luck and are sea-taboos. Manx Gaelic author, Edward Faragher, aka Ned Beg Hom Ruy, recorded in his work 'Skeealyn 'sy Ghailck', that during his time working on fishing boats in the 19th century, it was forbidden to name hares, rabbits, cats, or rats whilst aboard a ship. Roddan and later sacote were euphemistic substitutes. Clearly a load of Norwegian shanty ship. Roddan from the Anglo-Manx of long ago. Later sacote, and scientifically widespread in diminishing order: Norwegian, common, street, sewer, wharf, and Hanover rat. Sadly, to scrape, to scratch, or gnaw are no longer seen as virtues. Especially the latter. Where’s the dignity? The reward for perseverance? Strength of survival blue ribbon? Tailless I am, but unable to accept the limits of my genetic inadequacies. I can be bred for a tail, a lesser freak. Even a half-length version. Enough that I might survive should I escape into the real rat world underground, where many have optioned movies or secured book contracts, sometimes with near endless series. I am worthy. I am Manx Rat. 

 

Two feathers fell

 

entwined, swirling from the sky one windless day. Fell at the feet of a young boy. Let’s agree now he’s 12. He has his back snug against a sturdy water oak more than 3 times the slight width of his shoulders. Why he was there at this time and at this place during a spring burgeoning is none of your business, and has no purpose in this poem. How can two feathers fall in a heap you may ask. Consider this: they were large feathers, plume, from a huge bird, a California condor, the naked headed vulture. Intrigued or muddled? The poem continues as he gathers the falling feathers in his formative hands before they land and are defiled by unglorified earth. This he does not know. His reflexes are those of a mongoose. He flicks. He passes through time easily, precisely, slowly, parsing particles and parameters of space. He is exactly where he was meant to be at this moment. Answering a call deep in his DNA. Doing what must be done and doing it well. You will admit the truth of this. There’s no choice. Free will is a layer of skin shed. Allow yourself to transform. To smell what fills the air around and infuses human lungs with a promise of thunderous air or future gills. Or no need for either. There are obvious choices to be made. Obvious as a sledge hammer. Choices proscribed and fixed. You, the young boy, are transfixed. How could two feathers possibly portend such an implied future? Are dreams not just dreams? When did they become real? And why should such a young boy be burdened with this future pathway to . . . ? And why the mere you? Who choose you? Another why. Another reason to turn widdershins. To transfer energy, to deflect the particles seeking a new centre. The dark matter that is your heart.

Richard Weaver - Post-Covid, the author has returned as the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore. Other pubs: conjunctions, Louisville Review, Southern Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, Coachella Review, FRIGG, The Helix, Xavier Review, Atlanta Review, Dead Mule, Vanderbilt Poetry Review, & New Orleans Review. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005) which has been performed 3 times in Alabama, and once at Juilliard in NYC. He was one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review and its Poetry Editor for the first three years.  His 200th prose poem was recently accepted.