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Oregon, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

the cat (italian quarter, new york city)

 Hans Trausil, a translator and poet of the 1920's, gives us this glimpse of a tough little urban scrapper.


The Cat (Italian Quarter, New York City)

In front of the shop 

Where the copper light of dried fish glitters 

On the door-post like a sun-ray,You see the tail of the hungering one
Brushing the grey pavement.Softly like a wind-blown rag of yellow furIt curls behind the wheel of the wagonWhere she sits feigning a life most tedious;

As though longing for the oblivion of slumberShe huddles crookedly between her lean flanksAnd blinks at you slantingly and yawns,And at times a twitching

Ripples through her hollow bodyWherein dwells the murderess and harlot;As though for pastime she crouches there silently 

A shabby Buddha, solitarily enthroned.


--  Anthology of Magazine Verse. W.S. Braithwaite, ed. New York: Schulte Pub. Co. [etc.], 1922.  p. 12.  Originally in The Measure, March 1922.  (Public Domain)

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