The Cat
She was licking
the opened tin
for hours and hours
without realising
that she was drinking
her own blood.
Spyros Kyriazopoulous
Where to start? I wish I could write with this much brevity, acuity and emotion.
In a tragic, almost Sisyphus like circle, we see a clash of life and death, of happiness and pain. The Cat, although just an animal, embodies a drive for life but it is draped in solitude, as well as in a smallness and helplessness that evokes further existential frustration. The tin is an object crafted in furnaces, moulded by man, and here discarded. It evidences the unintentional but severe consequences of our progress. It is cold and hard and left behind where it wreaks havoc.
The poem is so innocuous at first; the beginning three lines paint a charming and quaint image which gives way, suddenly and without remorse, to horror in the final unremitting line. There are almost no adjectives in this poem. The imagery has an ascetic quality, the emotional development does not rely on flowered and colourful language. There are no soaring lyrical evocations, just a stark image crafted out of everyday objects. Despite this austerity, the poem has a tragic beauty that I admire.
As an aspiring poet and erudite I hope to write with the clarity and effectiveness that Kyriazopoulous has managed in this poem.
-Z
