PERFECT WORLD by Rathbun Elizabeth James

PERFECT WORLD

Hello, my name is Arghuthroumundi. I live in a house on a street with trees and lawns and gardens, and I live with Her. She talks out loud all the time and She thinks I don’t understand, but I do. Yesterday She was talking about a Perfect World. Let me tell you about mine.

I have a big, soft, fleecy cushion high on the window sill where I can see into Her garden. She has lots of those big red lilies and some tall spiky blue flowers, but what I like to watch are the little birds out there at the feeder. Actually it tortures me to watch them because my predatory instincts get roused. I follow the birds with my eyes, and my claws begin to go in and out. That’s when I like to jump down and race over to the big chair and scratch with all my strength on the upholstery. She said She didn’t mind. She gave me the chair anyway. Then I eat from a little blue dish in the kitchen, and sometimes there’s milk in the green dish. After that, I sit on the sofa and go to sleep. Sometimes She holds me in her lap and uses a little brush to tease out the fur I shed. I love to be brushed. You see, I’m a little vain about my appearance. I have long golden fur and blue eyes, and She thinks I’m quite handsome. I think so, too.

The most fun I have is when She comes back from shopping. She brings things in brown paper bags, and after emptying them, She puts them on a chair. I love to hide in the bags. I peek out the top to watch, and She pretends not to see me, until it’s time to put the bags away. Then I jump out and run over to my chair and scratch with all my might.

There’s more to my Perfect World, but I don’t have time to write about it all. She’s coming in from the garden now, and I have to sign off. She doesn’t know I can use the computer, and that’s a secret, all part of my Perfect World. Bye now. Love, Argh.

Unabrupt Until the End by Gavin Spanagel

Unabrupt Until the End

As a child I pondered what I’d

Like to become, as far as profession.

The unnumbered choices got whittled down.

I remember ’em one by one.

The other day I was thinking along the same lines

Like an old sun beaten path in a meadow I still recall

Under all the overgrowth the years put on.

Very few things, careers I mean, meant much

To my frugal way of thinking.

The challenge and the art.

The final conclusions and all the disillusioning disappointments

That go into learning just to get a little education out, just a drop.

And what then? What’s it all about? 

How would I mount what I had climbed toward . . .

With what skill would I have to

Turn around a climb back down after achieve what

I’d come to discover as something I’d deemed worth while.

It’s no wonder I settled on being a poet.

Doomed or blessed depending on your prioritous attitudes

To wander off with paper and pen.

Procrastinating all the while about real things.

A little bulb, a plug of pulp and ink,

I use to fill cracks in where others don’t think.

A diamond cutter was my top choice by the age of twelve or thirteen.

Of course growing up just above the poverty level prevented it.

I had to lower my standards just a little

But I still appreciate the uncut block

Of what comes before me in the clear.

I still use and, refrain from using, didactic methods

To get what I want from things I want to stick around,

Shine in the future, keep faith in and admire

From out our clay and concrete mixtures 

Cardboard pay-stubs and oucher-voucher statement sinecures

I repeat the strokes blow after blow,

Like a western breeze sailing toward the sunrisen east

It’s always dawn in eternity once you get down below

The swallowing effect time keeps one under.

Leaving dew to sparkling in the morning.

That’s about all I ever hoped for or wanted.

Marbles that roll toward one another and click 

In the center of circles and lines we’ve drawn.

Playing our most important games with ourselves and one another.

Matches that strike lights in our eyes

Surprise and the non-fiction side.

Being pushed off the edge of figuring it out.

The bouncing board between the lines

When we accept the punch at the end of a joke.

You can practice diamond cutting with glass

But it doesn’t work.

Blackboard drawings of ships look good,

But they, also, don’t always float.

I’ve learned from not getting anywhere

Just evolving my twiddling thumbs and

Reading Truman Capote, stretch fingers toward the sun

Shining through what’s before my eyes

Spelling goes wrong like threads on an old coat

I cut them off with diamond skill when I have to.

Leaving as much loose thread as I can.

Like meat on the bone.

Keeping the calf fat.

Because the tastes of others interests me less than my own

I want to go home with something unheard of that sounds good or

Looks great and doesn’t need to be addressed 

As any one thing, or has to be tucked away. 

In any of our popular, convenient envelopes. Oh no.

I prefer the un-shelfable,

Unrefuted indigenous side of life

“Stick to yo’ ribs” kind of stuff that gets

In between the toes in your mind and 

Pulls us through to

Some beauteous thread of flavor or meaning.

Things that can’t help but

Be chewed on instead of ground down

Grinding ones indentured teeth.

Over and over in repetitive styles already known 

Predigested . . . so to speak.

Nature is only as important

As a smile or a diamond

In a child’s eyes. 

Pouring out like the sun at sunrise . . .

In time, in time, in time, 

I’ll find my path.

Unabrupt until the end.