Cook & Crank: The Cosmic Poetry Podcast
The official podcast of Cosmic Poet Simon Pole. Hear a different poem performed each week in the Cosmic Poet's own authentic, expressive voice, with a short commentary for added enjoyment.
Simon Pole is the author of six volumes of poetry, including the seven-poem epic cycle The Saga of Terminal City. Known for a distinctive brand of writing called Cosmic Poetry, which scales from the everyday to the spiritual heights beyond, Pole is a graduate of Harvard University, and a descendant of early Canadian poet Susie Drury.
He lives in Kingsville, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie.
Cook & Crank: The Cosmic Poetry Podcast
O Cat
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O Cat on my lap on the couch, what are you thinking? Explore the cat’s imagination in a poem read by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole. From the Poems For Ocean collection.
Website: https://simonpole.ca/
Audio Credits: https://simonpole.ca/pages/audio-credits
Hello and welcome to Cook and Crank, the Cosmic Poetry Podcast. I'm your host, Simon Pole, the Cosmic Poet. Our poem today is called O Cat. And if you are a cat person, then you will appreciate our speculation on what exactly your cat is thinking as he's purring on the couch beside you. Is he imagining a complete cat society and how he might rule such a feline world? We will visit this enchanted realm after the break. O cat O cat who lies on my chest while I recline here at rest, a perfect bum on the couch in a sleepy, slothful slouch, a book I have in my hands that leads me to foreign lands, memoirs of far tramping men who penetrate field and fen, and their lost tribes uncover, and pirate gold discover, and generally have a thrill, conveying cliff hangar chills, in the pages of this tome, among many in my home. But you, O cat of closed eye, what inner worlds do you spy? What adventures have you there? What the ground squirrel, what the hare, that you chase in leaps and bounds, without help or with the hounds? To my book can they compare these cat dreams at which you stare? Or if you had script and pen and relive them all again, could they a best seller make, and crowds on excursions take, to that land of magic paws, which conduct your feline laws? A cat army, a cat court, which impound the baser sort, cat diviners in their robes, which the signs of heaven probe, the crusty cook, foppish dawns, each completes a story drawn, in the fancies of this cat, who upon my stomach sat, and imagined many more to people that distant shore. One that he reached but not me, except in this reverie, though a lazy space we share, on this couch away from care. You have just heard O Cat from the poetry collection Poems for Ocean. I'm your cosmic poet and host Simon Pohl. Visit the website SimonPole.ca for more cosmic poetry, including the book we've just read from. We'll be back soon on the Cook and Crank Podcast with more readings from the Poems for Ocean Collection. Until then, remember, poetry is the water of life, though whiskey might be too. Goodbye.