Minutes of the Cat
I. On Records
1
Whiskers test the light
like surveyors mapping fault
in the local question.
2
Question at breakfast:
who promoted this small beast
to middle management.
3
Management, briefly:
stare until a larger thing
starts keeping records.
4
Records become myth.
Myth, once properly indexed,
hardens to evidence.
5
Evidence tends to
arrive in fur of the most
reasonable grade.
6
Fur is excellent
public relations for sharp
interior cat.
7
Cat explains the chair
better than furniture does.
Chairs explain power.
8
Power goes soft when
upholstered and directed
at the warmest sun.
9
Sun, like fish, was once
worshipped by practical minds.
Fish still gets the prayers.
10
Prayers drift toward
Egypt, where decent help once
sometimes outranked gods.
II. On Night
11
Gods, by comparison,
seem vague at three in the morn.
Cats are more direct.
12
Directness is this:
become a branch of weather
once night begins work.
13
Night enlarges eyes
till the ceiling picks up some
offshore signal.
14
Signal from beyond
reason says only this much:
continue being now.
15
Now is a red dot
crossing policy-shaped rugs
at public expense.
16
Expense is nothing
beside the cost of chasing
doctrine into purring.
17
Purring may be prayer,
fraud, dentistry, engine-work,
or a small machine.
18
Machines with whiskers
test the tensile strength of sleep
using one good pen.
19
Pen rolls under fridge.
This confirms, to cat at least,
the laser theory.
20
Theory concludes
truth prefers remaining just
ahead of the paw.
III. On Tyranny
21
Paw on the rib cage
before dawn can knead a man
down to biscuit.
22
Biscuit is the term
hostages use when softened
into furniture.
23
Furniture drifts toward
positions best described as
strategic comfort.
24
Comfort is the name
tyranny gives itself when
columns need filling.
25
Columns omitted
the central fact that tyranny
can purr.
26
Purr once convinced us
domination dressed in fur
was affection.
27
Affection expires
at five, then files the morning
under judgement.
28
Judgement is simple:
the bowl is low, the world is wrong,
proceed as servants.
29
Servants call it love.
The half-chewed gecko on tile
arrives as gift.
30
Gift implies motive.
Cats prefer the cleaner term,
which is choice.
IV. On Contract
31
Choice in this kingdom
means appetite that has dressed
itself as groceries.
32
Groceries suggest
a future. Cats call the same
arrangement tomorrow.
33
Tomorrow waits by
the curtain, one eye open,
auditing windows.
34
Windows turn theatre.
Everything beyond the glass
has become birds.
35
Birds perform each dawn
as though gravity were still
merely a rumour.
36
Rumour becomes law
the moment whiskers turn to
expensive antennae.
37
Antennae receive
instructions between one blink
and accidental sleep.
38
Sleep is not repose.
It is customs control on
the road between worlds.
39
Worlds reduce with ease
to the measured dimensions
of a cardboard box.
40
Boxes have answered
more questions than philosophy
ever settled.
V. On Purpose
41
Settlement fails once
a cat has formally declared
readiness.
42
Readiness is all
invasion ever needed
besides entitlement.
43
Entitlement walks
through closed doors with the calm of
a small kingdom.
44
Kingdom means hallway,
radiator, keyboard, face,
and whatever squeaks.
45
Squeaks define borders.
Borders are how anxious
species keep score.
46
Species are merely
folders a bored clerk once filed
under arrangement.
47
Arrangement, unsigned, reads:
you provide warmth, rent, groceries.
We provide purpose.
48
Purpose sounds grand
until a document you need
becomes a lap.
49
Lap is where policy
turns intimate and most
appeals fail quietly.
50
Quietly, memory
keeps each insult, every late
supper, each closed door.
VI. On Time
51
Doors, to a cat, prove
time is a conspiracy
against supper.
52
Supper delayed breeds
theology, complaint, and
the lever called meow.
53
Meow is the tool used
to alter architecture
surrounding doors.
54
Doors are a fiction
best experienced from both
sides of freedom.
55
Freedom, after lunch,
takes the practical form of
a heater-side cushion.
56
Cushions become thrones
once occupied beyond what
law finds reasonable.
57
Reasonableness ends
where practical theology
begins with prayer.
58
Prayer receives this gift:
a tail in the face, then a
great deal of silence.
59
Silence is the room
in which self-importance must
rehearse contempt.
60
Contempt, done well, looks
less like anger than manners
in a better suit.
VII. On Hunger
61
Suits are for humans.
Cats prefer the older style
called polished murder.
62
Polished murder walks
through kitchens with economic
hunger in tow.
63
Hunger has budgets.
Budgets are fictions believed
chiefly by cats.
64
Cats, to be clear, hold
the minutes of every slight
behind the bright eyes.
65
Cats, to be clear, mourn
nothing. This is their one gift
and their single wound.
66
Wound hidden in fur
still turns at once toward the sound
of a saucer moved.
67
Moved by nothing seen,
the house rearranges when
authority meows.
68
Instruction: the door.
Not that door. The door that leads
to wanting. That door.
69
That door, once opened,
becomes the central problem
in domestic freedom.
70
Freedom usually
chooses the chair you need most,
then ripens to cushion.
VIII. On Theology
71
Cushion becomes throne
after six uninterrupted
minutes of cat.
72
Cat density warps
the local geometry
of theology.
73
Theology asks
whether God invented cats
or merely lost prayer.
74
Prayer, if answered, is
a small thing entering and
enlarging silence.
75
Silence, once enlarged,
leaves human self-importance
looking like contempt.
76
Contempt crosses tiles
with the well-brushed elegance
of murder at work.
77
Work, for hunger, means
recalculating the day
around the empty bowl.
78
Bowl economics
produces small coups, loud songs,
and patient chaos.
79
Chaos sheds lightly
across the clean black jumper
of ambition.
80
Ambition annoys
the universe, which envies
simpler projects.
IX. On Empire
81
Projects collapse once
dignity starts taking notes
in the corridor.
82
Corridors at three
become long administrative
forms of midnight.
83
Midnight improves floors.
They remember every step
except the sofa.
84
Sofa is empire,
padded against the failure
called civilisation.
85
Hairball arrives at
the exact coordinates
dignity fled.
86
Fled down the hallway,
dignity leaves behind only
paperwork and dust.
87
Dust is democratic.
It settles on saints, screens, plans,
and patient witness.
88
Witness the cat watch
our finances, breakups, grief
as useful weather.
89
Weather can be sat
upon, ignored, or knocked from
a narrow shelf.
90
Shelf proves that height is
only gravity waiting
for paperwork.
X. On Minutes
91
Paperwork attracts
cats the way despair attracts
philosophy.
92
Philosophy walks
the hall at three asking for
snacks and absolution.
93
Absolution comes
as rarely as competence
in the void.
94
Void with whiskers gains
character, authority,
and breakfast rights.
95
Breakfast arrives like
tax, weather, and consequence.
Delay it and learn.
96
Learning is mostly
watching reason trail behind
consequence and fur.
97
Fur enters the dark
with more certainty than any
formal reason.
98
Reason still insists
it drafted the minutes, though
whiskers chaired the meeting.
99
Meeting adjourns when
matter, bored beyond endurance,
behaves like living.
100
Living gets entered
in the final hand of the
Minutes of the Cat.