Don’t you just hate it when people foist their endless “fur-babies” talk on you? Especially when it’s about how cute they are, their antics, their high-falutin airs and graces. Well, here’s a puss post plus: one long post to scratch on and get it all over with in one go! Didn't I promise I'd post something far more important than saving you millions in my last post? After I floated the idea of cats and skies, one respondent requested I cover both in one, hence the photo above.
Don’t be fooled by the similarity of those two words in the title above; that second word, hoisted up in hysterical CAPs – is intended for enunciation as a cat-like shriek. Somebody has to represent the poor critturs.
Before coming to live in Malaysia I worried that there might not be so many cats around for me to engage with. Surely such furballs wouldn’t endure an equatorial climate? I started to paw at the issue with my Street Cats piece in an earlier post on Claypot Lao Shi Fun, and here below are a couple more poems featuring Malaysian cats if only fleetingly, in the here-and-gone scatter of their scattitude.
There’s a passing mention of a cat in this first poem; I include it because it relates to Malaysian wildlife and tame death.
Non-Adventure with Snake
Hardly moving, it insinuated nothing
seen through the window by my son and I
and up close by the neighbour’s cat, pawing.
It was just twelve inches; thirteen, tops. Non-
venomous, black, no bright colour scheme –
I can’t claim our lives were in danger.
I placed it beneath an upturned bucket
where it hosted the ants who filed in and out
in orderly queues for three meals per day.
Picked clean, its spine could have been an oror-
obic necklace, its ends meeting sinu-
ously to wind up back at the start –
& & & & & & & &
I almost added “and snaky snacks” to the last line of that third stanza above. Aren't you glad I didn't?
Western cats’ poo is odourless as I recall it, probably due to almost all of them eating just one or two heavily-advertised brands. The “heat” levels there certainly wouldn’t have been enough to kick up the stink. Stepping in the stuff here in Malaysia was a monstrous revelation. Cat poo can be smellier than that from dogs, and there’s a distinct possibility you’ll end up throwing your shoes out when you find that nothing gets that stench out of them. Please do tell me what actually works, apart from burning them.
I don't want to be racist, but… (drumroll): nearly all of the friendly cats I've met in this country are ginger or some ginger admix. People from my Celtic country, Ireland, are often ginger-haired too, as are folks from Wales and Scotland. I probably shouldn’t claim too much of a connection for this, but Irish people are famously friendly as well.
Most of the rest of the felines I’ve encountered in Malaysia are scaredy cats, making me wonder what they’ve gone through with the numerous stray dogs due to their owners not having cat flaps (low cat-sized doors cut into the wooden door), or even at human hands – and dumped onto the streets.
I do have several other cat poems; these below are the ones that touch on Malaysian life.
Were I to post Les Murray’s poem, From Where We Live On Presence below here under fair usage terms and further expanding this post’s length, you’d see how closely and cheekily mine below here draws from it, as with Raymond Carver’s Happiness LINK in my cattified version, Contentment. One of the most effective exercises I give creative writing students is to find a published poem almost on a random page turn and have a go at answering it back, as Glasgow (Scotland) poet Carol Ann Duffy has it.
The poem below first appeared with a different title in Issue 6 of online poetry journal Men Matters. I hope these poems survive Newswav’s electronic format like slinky cats weaving well around adverts.
Where Our Presence Sleeps
(with apologies to Les Murray)
A feline is some stardust streamed on instinct far down time; no other
living is like it. Cathood itself is my expression.
It murmurs through purring, in jaw-tooth presentation, rabid running
and a fierce good sleep. With no words to obfuscate my fur!
We tabbies got the tiger franchise, and milked it; kings
of the concrete jungle, we please ourselves alone;
good that they happen to patronise it, we blithely suppose
if while washing, we consider the matter at all.
We peered out living-room windows, night and day
till they saw our captivity next their own,
and the revolution came in through low doors.
One man spoke of our namelessness and our secret names;
my minion said his was an anagram of ‘toilets’, nothing more,
and that seemed to wash for him. I translate
into fabrics, carpet, the sofa, window display. But I am always
the true meme of my kind.
& & & & & & & &
Contentedness
(A version of Raymond Carver’s Happiness)
So early, the sun hasn’t gripped.
I’m out for the morning walk with my mind
and its regular dull buzz.
I spot the two surviving kittens
and their mother, plus the mangy grandma cat
coming slowly down the alley.
They’re all short fur
of different colours. One’s a cream Burmese.
They are so contented
they aren’t making any sound, these kittens.
I think if I wasn’t here, they would twine
each other’s tails.
It’s earlier than tropical heat,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, in cat time.
The sky is taking on colour,
though the moon still rests lightly on the park.
Such brilliance that for this minute
plans and regrets, even truth
don’t come into this.
Contentedness. It comes on
with no push. And pads beyond, really,
any waking thoughts about it.
& & & & & & & &
Called into Being
Countless, the fallen coconuts I've miaowed
at – glanced at speed, dimly lit. Who for,
these sudden squeaks? Not for the nuts. Partly
for baby, partly for me; above all,
for the latent cat in every street scene –
to see if the shoes massed outside houses
will step up into cathood, puddles stretch
to liquid feline states. It would be something
and a half, to know what might catalyse
the transmogrification. Here they are,
purring in their fur in tropical heat –
no signs of flinch or flight, these young street cats.
The air around their slinky shapes, their moves,
takes the latency as they rub up –
hard, tough as boots, coats matted like coir.
& & & & & & & &
Fruits of the Gutter
Leaving the house, I look out for the flash
of fur, the trailing tail merging street corners.
By restaurants, under cars, down drainage ditches;
cats are fruits of the gutter, and not just
for those that eat them. Breeds such as Burmese
and Siamese in the West are pedigree;
status means high price and prestige.
Here, they grace gutters.
With all this mold on buildings, the brutal-
ist concrete, the functional decor, cats
transmogrify the built environment.
They bring uplift, poets insist: pawing
gently at our legs at mamaks, lounging
around or chasing the wind, they remind us:
life is ludic, not just productive.
We need these cutest of non-pets.
I’ve seen them eat rats; one hawker denied it.
They avoid eye contact; flinch or scarper.
You cannot befriend them, unworthy and low
in their own eyes. Whose shoes told them that?
& & & & & & & &
Thanks for reading! I’d like to feature a few of Lawrence Pettener’s author pages here:
Kwailo Lumpur’s author page here at Newswav:
https://newswav.com/publisher/kwailo-lumpur-2170. All of my foodie book, Malaysia on Yer Plate is here, plus.
Poetry reviews at Asian Review of Books:
The Star newspaper, Malaysia:
Mohani Niza’s excellent The Culture Review features around 16 of my interviews and reviews: https://theculturereviewmag.home.blog/2021/08/23/lawrence-pettener-interviews-malaysian-poet-shirley-geok-lin-lim/
This post was produced on Temuan land.
Qing xia mien ping lun: Please comment below dan sila komen di bawah. In Tamil Go Ogle tells me that’s Kīḻē karuttu terivikkavum.
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