By R L Powell



Never name the cat
after your morning’s emperors

“The naming of cats is a difficult matter”
—T.S. Eliot


I. Titus isn’t moved

There’s a cup of morning tears, tottering
beside an election; and underneath, lines
to read—how any selection in the future
burst, on its way in. I try to do my best—

to deny, when all I have left to murder
is one last chew of coffee. Because there’s
winter—staring me down, by degrees.
The milk is broken; the cat’s unkind;

he’s exalted as a potentate. Chase him.
His tail will flash the final hour.


II. Titus might allow a fighting chance

Feline tyranny is static—and there’s proof—
it’s stored-up to wipe your attention away
from the surface of a screen. Your turn’s
come—to take the passage—meet all high

standards—you’ve neglected to maintain—
stored high, as Plato’s good. Measure sweetness
to concentrate what you can make deep
as the future is—even as you crater your teeth.

Trash each rage and email, as they’re removed
from the envelope of morning. The cat’s
own prize has opened, already. He’s there
to remind you how—he’s master of the day.

It’s in his court that time drips out in its
slow ceremony of coffee. Remember to take
your first rattle of pills. And reduce the body’s
lagniappe groans—a migraine’s worth of

mewling—and then admit, there’s fuck all
to the news. What’s left to leave the future
in kettles—juddering to their midnights. And
penniless wraiths—turning endless spectral

doubts—to spin through the rat-wheeled
gloom. And leave yourself to account for all
love that’s unforgiven—you still find lying
there—to meet you—deep within the bed.



One’s song hardly wed committing violence
aside fears of an open kiss, in 1999

“Make him green dresses from the velvet curtains.
Take this gold ring of mine. Fix a chain to it. Let
him wear it around his wry little neck.”
—The Countess, Titus Groan


I’ll shape a promise, out of my lips—an O! as tight as a ring—a
water-mark crept-up to steal what’s been made and then left of
my sta!. It takes fathoms of deviance to measure the depths I’ll
go to wear you—like a ring, about my finger. Were I a promise
—a burlesque of lace—a confidence of unattached music—I’d
rehearse, to be shaped as a ring. I’d clap as a bell—lead the way
to our plot—to furnish mycelium rings. Once foredoomed to
the posies—and redolent charms—we’d be scraped-out, from
under those rings. Now festooned, in our garlands—and
energy, bright—told skeins will still mock in decay. Stripped
bare of each utterance—but knotted with night—too
inconsistent to stay linked to the distance—and yet chained to
our prison called bed. And what of this ring, we’ve made of the
earth? It’s magnetic—determined—and ringing us now—
we’re destined to meet, by our poles. The nature we knew
makes a show, calls it triage—draws patience in zeros, as
rings. All cycles are failures—lapping our search, leading
endlessly ’round, in a ring. I listened to hear the tv say, how
the world insists we’re in this together—contingent on combat
and sin. Each rot that arrives to our spirit is bet-on, alerted,
knelled—to be fought on—but abandoned, to the pit of the
ring. I’m champion! one of us bawls—fist to the air—O, Lord!
is roared—while from the mat—a slur that tilts a blackened eye
—a rustled head, brought low, to admit the occasion of a
crown—then concede, to its ceremony of tin. So spied in the
echo, a victor is left—detained to the heart of the ring. There,
hunched in his cape—a stitched mantle of arms—no
revolution to grant him a witness. What remains now, is cold—
a patched and lonely, empty throne—while a diadem’s
prepared, to be let down—condensed to arrive, as a ring.