Scoops

I was privy once to a gentle dream that woke me from my slumbers,

of European horror the Silver Screen might emulate

but never could encapsulate:

the Darkness in the eyes of a cat named Scoops.

- - -

The cat was a boy's who lived in the manor, above which

reigned a night, black and vaguely starless;

and though the lights burned bright

in every window and vaulted spire,

the house was empty, for the boy was down below

on the lapping shore of reed-ridden swamp

that smelled of ichor and dust,

and drank deeply the stones of the cliff

the great manor sat upon. One day--

one day soon, I thought as I observed, impartial, spectral--

the cliff would crumble into the mires and be devoured,

cruelly and without care for all the artwork

and all the memories

amassed of a private lifetime.

But the boy cared not that his house and his swamp

were caught in a cyclical war of survival--

for he lived in one no longer, and beheld the other for the last time.

Against the other edge of the abyssal waves,

ebony-capped and visible only by the swaying of the reeds,

there stood a smoke-tower, within which

unseen men toiled unseen jobs,

and sent mist billowing up to the glimmering sky:

a pastiche of false clouds. This, I observed, sitting beside

the boy, whose blond hair billowed and whose eyes never left

the sight of those flickering tendrils of man-mist,

even as the squelching swamp-waves sucked at his bare toes.

Neither did the boy look around when his mother,

a stern woman of thin face and thin bones,

came halfway down the shoreline to meet him,

observed his solemn silence,

knew already the words she wished to say, and moreover

knew already the words she wished not to hear

that would come, assuredly, from her youth's throat.

The boy did not turn, but I did, and observed at once

the eyes of she who ruled the manor above--

the Palace of Slow Decay--

shining with tired light and a tired life,

and already losing in her mind the unfought war.

As she turned to leave, she cast her glance to her son's new home--

at least, as he told me wordlessly, the home he'd taken momentarily--

one she hoped as pyrrhic victory

her son would take more permanently--

one made of driftwood, a ramshackle shack

of seaweed and swamp-reed

but lit inexplicably with uncoiled electricity:

Gold, to the nighttime's delight.

Barely more than a bed, it held no door

as it faced the great singing swamp

and the far-off smoky towers,

but held windows nonetheless on either side,

to observe the cliff of the manor-house

and the accompanying woodland roves.

The walls of his abode were decorated, I saw,

with pictures a child's hand might draw,

whose inner complexities greatly did vex me--

for the subjects were inexpressibly raw.

Sitting, in the sole chair, untucked from the sole desk,

under the sole light,

betwixt the windows,

beside the bed,

beneath the clock,

sat the form I beheld for the first time--

and as I stared at it, I knew at once a million little details

of the boy and his mother and the manor and the swamp:

knew them as I looked, silently,

not daring to speak or be seen in return, into

the Darkness in the eyes of a cat named Scoops.

- - -

All this, this image, this painting of life,

came to my senses as a momentary flash--

and suddenly now came a lumbering crash,

as the boy's friends came through the trees, rife

with envious eyes and fear-fettered hearts,

pausing on the shore-line beside their friend

but doing all they could to sweetly pretend

the cat sat miles apart.

"Tell me," one cried--a lad of dark hair,

in the prime of his life, free as the wind,

"Why are you going? Why do you care

for this creature as odd as original sin?"

Beside him, a girl, whose heart was open

as all the rest of the painting, in my gaze--

who loved dearly the blond boy, though unspoken

was this spell; unuttered the three-word phrase--

now spoke with intensity to match her brother:

"Tell me," she wept, "why not come back,

at least to the village with us? Why stay

on this fetid shoreline, under black

and ruined gables that will never again see day?"

At this, the blond's head turned, and I saw that he smiled,

but it never reached the glimmer in his eyes.

They burned like twin coals, smoldering but mild,

as he sat and thought up replies.

Finally, seeing the group amassed on the shore, he said, "Tell me,

of all of you here, in your lives,

have you ever known something as yours--yours fully--

something of which you've been deprived?"

Then the boy pointed, and the crowd parted,

and they looked with pale faces at the finger, outstretched,

and where it landed they gasped, and soon they departed,

for the cat met them all with great mettle--sublime wretch!--

Only the girl tarried a moment more,

pained for he whom she'd loved long before,

and as their eyes met, the words unsaid flew,

and as she left the shoreline, the both of them knew

that this was the last they would see of each other;

once, dreams of a lifetime together, now nevermore

as the whole daydream unraveled, before

the Darkness in the eyes of a cat named Scoops.

- - -

I waited, chained to my spot,

looking from cat to boy and boy to cat,

but the youth had little more to say,

for his thoughts were washing away,

a twin of the cliff of his manor.

Soon enough, he'd look to the horizon

past the great smoke towers, where pink-strewn clouds

and orange-soaked blues

would stab the dawn anew, casting shrouds

of daylight forth amongst the oncoming rain.

The reeds would sway, as in decades gone by,

but the youth would be vanished, and by then so would I,

and his mother and friends would all think he'd die,

but the woods would know better, and so would the sky:

the boy would go traveling, through many long years,

and as the world aged he'd stay just the same--

never again would he know any fears,

but many times more would he shoulder the blame,

for with him would travel his cat, eccentric,

lumbering, black-furred, observing, eclectic,

a thing that had crawled out of Night's deepest pit,

but befriended a boy whom had safe-sheltered it,

who knew very well that its true name was Lucifer

but cared not a jot as he stroked its long fur--

for the cat jumped down, and crawled to his lap,

and as they sat silently watching the swamp,

the last piece of the painting became hauntingly clear--

the piece that still haunts me, and woke me with fear,

the same fear as his friends, as his mother, but never him:

the cat's face was obscured by a face porcelain--

upon its brow, a doll's face, peachy and aged,

with not one spider-crack; round and blank, sage--

Eyeless

and behind those eye-holes

there was only Darkness:

behind that faceless face

no mouth but still groaning

no nose but still smelling

no ears but still hearing

no eyes but still seeing

all the things around him--especially me--as I stared into

the Darkness in the eyes of a cat named Scoops.