Mephistopheles

It’s true beer and music can help a little,

but when my Thai world no longer suffers

my presence, when my family shoulders

me out preferring the heart that beats

within their culture over the one

in my aged chest, when the weather is

not meditating but just  down and glum,

when the female cats are in heat and

Mephistopheles in the guise of our

black cat named Jimmy is consumed

by the need of snarling, on top cat sex,

I could leave tomorrow for the nothingness

of death and feel no great sense of loss. 

Only words when they shape themselves

into an ink-blot of a poem keeps me

interested, keeps me carrying on.

FG       9/6/2016         

Getting cats spayed is something no Thai would do.  It’s the money and in large measure something not on the emerging market’s bucket list.  Jimmy lives in the boundary between our house and the wild world.  I see him – and he often looks like hell - a drunk who has been living rough and fighting - but he is the only family member who talks to me.  How’s it going, Jim?  Meow.  Rough night.  Meow, tell me about it.  He’s all black angora with yellow eyes that burn like live coals.  He will not be dissuaded from his duties.  The girls try to keep him inside, sleeping with them, locking him in the shop, but like the devil himself, he’s hard to lock up.