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CAT 1: The Cat Returns

by Peter Cat

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1.
The Old West Pier looks like a spider set against a twilit sky the colour of sweetest port The kind you liked to drink once But just one glass, just one, and never on weeknights Oh Christ, you’re so fucking middle class I check the weather forecast And hope for rain ‘Cause course you’ll board that train, yeah, and of course you’ll take his hand You’ll rent a townhouse by the pier and you’ll take walks across the sand Down by the bay, down by the bay - day by day So I’ll just let her get away Your boy - he’ll be the toast of Soho - your man - and the king of White Cube There - with all manner of boys upon his arm Oh - he’ll be on Serota’s rota - your beau - and be in Saatchi’s satchel Sweet - with a gaggle of girls upon his arm Boys upon his arm, boys upon his arm, girls upon his arm Then maybe you’ll find the time to write that novel that you’ve always wanted to write It used to keep you up all night ‘Cause when he leaves home - leaves you on your own once more You’ll have all those seeds to sow and reap and time to cry yourself to sleep Quite simply let her fade away It’s six months on and still I have recurring dreams - I’m trapped in-between two panes of glass I’m staring up at you while I loop the loop, endlessly - me and eight strange gentlemen I don’t know them but they’re grinning freakishly And stroking eight au fait goatees ‘Cause of course you’ll board that train, yeah, and of course you’ll take his hand You’ll rent a townhouse by the pier and you’ll take walks across the sand Down by the bay - day by day
2.
Please, if you’re listening, don’t go thinking that I really followed you down there Or that I have closed myself down to love and to life Or that I have become paralysed I’m functioning perfectly and all that that implies But I still I wish I felt your head on my shoulder And I still wish I felt your breath in the night However slight An opportunity There may be For love There’s always been a Cheshire cat within me That with a grin and to my chagrin will spin An imaginary web Catching the dreams that there might have been between us He’s so bloody serious Unlike me I’m really a lot of fun Fun, fun, fun But I still I wish I felt your head on my shoulder And still I wish I felt your breath in the night However slight An opportunity There may be For love Your face invades my waking hours And in half-remembered dreams it’s your cigarette in silhouette I see You are my green light now So vivid yet so very far away So very far away Far away
3.
Laughing like an old school Billy Childish, circa ’95 Moustache emerging just below the nostrils, belligerent twinkle in the eye Tall, dark and full of a certain something, or maybe only of himself His rational piece is not for you and I, baby, we just don’t have the wealth Oh oh oh oh - how far will he go? He’ll be unstoppable, and like a modern-day Rodchenko Oh oh oh oh - oh, cri de coeur He’s de rigueur while we’re still obscure He dreams of colour, dreams of light, dreams of art parties through the night He dreams of dark rooms devoid of all noise but the sound of his spectacular mind He might win the Turner Prize - he might write truth into the murky Brighton sky I tell you, keeping up with Jacob is such a chore In five minits you’ll know me, or maybe in more like four And in eight minims or more you’ll have wound up on the floor Oh ha ha ha - peals of laughter Fill the gallery - is this what’s become of me? He dreams of colour, dreams of light, dreams of art parties through the night He dreams of dark rooms devoid of all noise but the sound of his spectacular mind He might win the Turner Prize - he might write truth into the murky Brighton sky I tell you, keeping up with Jacob is such a chore And if he’d read the letter that I wrote to you He’d have simply shaken my quivering hand And he’d have called it a work of art A shining light in the darkness; an intervention in the banal That in the end made no difference at all He dreams of girls, he dreams of boys, dreams up the charm that he deploys To render all of us subject to his grace and wit and will Oscar Wilde himself would be perpetually a-spin within his Parisian grave, thinking Keeping up with Jacob Keeping up with Jacob Keeping up with Jacob was such a bore Such a bore Such a bore
4.
I tell a joke about death To keep the air cool I know that you know I’m going away I know that you know that I cannot stay You quake imperceptibly and bite your bottom lip You always wanted to believe in something Well, now you’ve got me, so go on - make me feel guilty So just stay strong (liar, liar) It won’t be long (liar, liar) Until I do you wrong (liar, liar) This is my black swan song and it doesn’t belong to anyone else but me There’s always a mightier place that we go to That’s better and brighter than what went before So crack a smile for me while I compile my list Of things to do before I die I tell a joke about death To reassert gravity To pull the wool over your Bowie eyes To pull the wool over your spaceman eyes You’ve been hoisting me skyward - higher, much higher than I deserve to be An apotheosis like a balloon full of hot air How can I not even care? So just stay strong (liar, liar) It won’t be long (liar, liar) Until I do you wrong (liar, liar) This is my black swan song and it doesn’t belong to anybody else but me The context was thin and the punchline was weak And you didn’t laugh, no, you just blamed my mean streak For carving a hole in which God could reside in your heart Well, at least that’s a start
5.
Someday Someday I will love you Love you like I ought to Love you like you are entitled to Expect of me Just not yet You’re in love with someone else And that’s quite inconvenient Someday Someday I will love you Love you like I need to do Like any decent girl would have Expected me to Oh yes You’re engaged to someone else You’re not in at the moment Far be it from me to insinuate That your love will not last and will turn into hate Or that you and he couldn’t become something great You see, this is the way that I deal with defeat With a rambling series of hypotheses Casting aspersions on an absentee As she unloads the van and unpacks the TV As she uncorks a bottle of ice cold chablis And she pours it and toasts to their marital bliss And he smiles so sweetly and gives her a kiss And they stay just like this For awhile And he holds that smile As they kiss Just like this Awhile And he holds That smile Awhile As they kiss Just like this Awhile And he holds That smile Awhile As they kiss Just like this

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released November 7, 2011

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Peter Cat Glasgow, UK

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