"Jubilate: An Homage in Catterel* Verse"

By Joyce Carol Oates...

For I will consider my Cat Cherie
for she is the very apotheosis of Cat-Beauty
which is to say, nothing extraordinary
for in the Cat, beauty is ordinary
like the bliss
conferred
upon us
in the hypnosis
of purr-
ing.
She has been known
to knead her claws
upon a sleeve.
And on a knee.
And on bare skin,
sharp claws sinking in—
just a warning.
For she is of the tribe of Tyger
and eyes burning bright
though cuddling
at night
until you wake to discover—
where is she? Cher-ie?
Don’t inquire.

For in considering my Cat Cherie
I am considering Catitude—
each Cat the (essential)
equivalent of all others
not varying freak-
ishly in size
(like crude D*gs)
but pleas-
ingly Platonic.
Cat-chutzpah
is the “sheathed
claw”—
no heart borne
upon a foreleg,
but
your challenge
to decode,
like poetry
of a subtlety
that does not bark
its meaning
but forces us to
be just a little
smarter than
we are.
(Unlike D*gs
whose un-
critical adulation
makes us
dumber.)
Of Twitter it is estimated
somewhere beyond thirty-one percent
who tweet are feline,
in nocturnal prowl
slyly retweeting
their kind,
reproducing,
replicating
the dark rapacious ever-
fecund feral-soul
that is the sea
upon which “civilization”
floats, uneasily.

Click link for more

* “Catterel”—an elevated variant of “doggerel”