WHAT A FELINE

To avoid the inevitable complaints from my cat-loving friends, I’ve decided to follow my previous poem, about our dog, with a cat poem. This is about a haughty fellow I sometimes see when walking in the Bordeaux area.

 OZYMANDIAS

A grey cat sits in a doorway,

sphinx-like, disdainful, elegant,

in velvet-textured light

that warms him like a throne.

He fascinates me. 

I name him

Ozymandias, Cat of Cats.

To him, I am irrelevant:

neither food-source, threat nor prey.

Nine cat-lives in a ninth of mine,

his gaze dismisses me: 

deems me invisible. 

You will stare 

till you turn to stone 

or shatter like glass,

Cat of Cats,

Ozymandias.