[Joe Crocker]

revision

A one-way visit

to the vet with our decrepit cat:
snaggle-toothed, arthritic, ectoparasitic.
His kick-ass piebald coat is now a mat
for fleas to wipe their feet on.

His legs are lame. His dignity is flat.
He used to know his name was Tipperary.
Today it could be Tom or even Jerry
It’s rough. He’s had enough.
And that is that.



A one way visit

to the vet with our decrepit cat:
snaggle-toothed, arthritic, ectoparasitic.
His fine Dalmatian coat is now a mat
for fleas to wipe their feet on.

His legs are lame. His dignity is flat.
He used to know his name was Tipperary
but now it could be Tom or even Jerry
It’s rough. He’s had enough.
And that
is that.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Joe—

Making the decision to end a pet’s life is, as the N states, “rough.”
It sounds as though the N is convincing himself of the logic of his decision, but is still struggling with the emotional price. I wonder if you could let us see a bit more of this struggle.

Glenn

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Joe,
We get so attached to pets and it's heart-breaking when they die, but at least we can choose to end their suffering. (That's why my husband and I are now pet-free; all my kids have dogs and cats.)

But, to the poem: It's very descriptive and tells us everything we need to know. I like the brevity, and the ending is spot on! (but sad.)

I wondered why you have a mix of capitals and lower case at the beginnings of the lines. Also, when I got to L3 I thought it had switched to a dog and was confused for a moment; I've never heard of a cat's fur being called "dalmation" before, or indeed seen the word used as an adjective.

(If this has happened recently you have my sympathy.)

Jayne

[Joe Crocker]

Thanks Glenn and Jayne. This all happened yesterday afternoon. i wrote this just after I buried Tipper next to our dog. I don’t usually post quite so quickly but it had got to a point where it seemed to say what I wanted.

Yes Glenn, I could say quite a bit more and may do so, but I rather liked its clipped matter of factness. A sad but necessary thing. The poem is mostly me trying to justify my actions. And it does occur to me that the ending that presumes “He’s had enough” might more honestly say “We’d had enough”.

He had been declining for a few months, probably diabetic, and in the end he wasn’t much more than a slack sack of spanners. And he was 18+. Still, an unhappy thing to have to do.

Hi Jayne. The punctuation may just be my slapdash proof reading. The first line is meant to run on from the title, hence the lower case. I could put in some ellipses to make it clearer? L1 should probably end with a colon, so that L2 starts lower case. And L2 should end with a stop. ie

A one way visit…

…to the vet with our decrepit cat:
snaggle-toothed, arthritic, epiparasitic.
His fine Dalmatian coat is now a mat
for fleas to wipe their feet on.

Yes Dalmatians are a dog breed. (Should it be capitalised?). But our cat was similarly black and white. The tip of his tail was white as were his other extremities, so my daughter called him Tipperary, Tipper for short. He was no longer able to groom himself, was incontinent and looked permanently disheveled and dismayed.

[Max Goodman]

Condolences.

That Tipper no longer seems to know his name at the end of his life, is a touching detail.

I'm not sure whether you're posting here to learn how the poem works for readers, or as a way of working through your grief, so I won't go into detail unless requested, but mention that, while it's clear that the cat has been a long-standing part of the speaker's life and that his death is painful for both him and the speaker, I'm prevented from feeling that pain by a light-verse quality of many of the lines. FWIW.

Again, condolences.

[Jim Moonan]

.
This is beautifully rendered, with the pain being heartbreakingly pent as the N gives the news in a matter-of-fact manner.

Very good poetry!

.

[Joe Crocker]

Max, Jim M, Jim R. Many thanks for those thoughts and sincere thanks for your honesty. It is a short poem, quickly written and hard to judge how it works. I wanted to steer clear of sentimentality, but I didn’t intend it to be flippant. I meant it to be fond. The light, clunky rhymes seemed appropriate for this fluffy creature who spent most of his life asleep in the sun or tripping me up in the kitchen. He was my little daughter’s pet and the AA Milne nursery rhyme ending just felt right. But, as someone or other has wondered, is it possible to write a serious Limerick (let alone a tender one)?

Thanks again

Joe

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Joe,

I am going to blame Julie for this critique. I am compulsively honest lately and consequently sometimes impolite. This poem is tugging at me, both at the heartstrings and as to which way my crit swings. Although this is well written, I feel forced to appraise it only thematically. Usually I claim it is a poet's prerogative to choose their theme and my only job here is to help them convey it. I think that as it is now this is a poem that can affect people in different ways. I can side with Max and say it is flippant enough it could be seen as depicting just another day of marching ho-hum through life or I can side with Jim M. and say it shows the N putting on a tough facade to keep from crying or showing pent up emotion. I can't decide so for me it reads ambiguously. I then ask is ambiguity a good choice for this poem. I've read moving poems of poets acknowledging they want their alzheimer's afflicted parent to die, but never so far a flippant one. I've read the account of American politician Kristi Noem bragging of killing her rambunctious young dog with a shotgun because it misbehaved. I've seen chickens' heads twisted off to put dinner on the table. I've seen calves castrated with a pocket knife. I've had several dogs meet tragic ends or be put down at the vet's and I've cried every time. I've had good friends who would show no pangs of conscience at putting a bullet through a deer's heart or eating a calf they've fed daily and given a name. I cite these events to explain why I can't automatically find empathy with the N or his practicality. But I certainly want to. I also can't dislike the N. After all, putting a pet down is nearly an inevitable experience for anyone who has owned one. But if this were mine I would worry which readers might be turned off by my N's flippancy. But then, I've already basically admitted to being a wuss. Joe, I have written all of this because I think your piece has been getting the benefit of the doubt and too many have automatically assumed a heartache that I am not sure the poem shows as of yet. The good news is it can't be given the dreaded sentimental tag, and that is that, for what it's worth.

Jim

[Matt Q]

Hi Joe,

I think the unsentimental tone works well here.

I'd be inclined to lose the ellipses and revert to the original opening. It actually works absent the title, too, anyway: "to the vet with our decrepit cat:". And the lower case does enough show the run on from the title. It's how it's conventionally done, I think. In fact, you don't even need the run on, unless you want it. You could start "To the vet with our decrepit cat:"

Most lines have 5 beats, S1L2 has six, and s1L4 has (arguably) four. I don't know if you're intending this variation or not.

Is the cat itself "epiparasitic"? Maybe I misunderstand the word, but I think that would mean the cat is a parasite of something that is itself a parasite. I could see that the cat might be cast as a parasite on its owners, but who are its owners parasitising? Or do you mean that the cat's parasites have parasites. In which case, maybe something like, "his parasites have parasites" would be better -- the repetition adding more comic effect, and possibility necessitating fewer visits to a dictionary Though it'd require some reworking.

In S2, "But" is capitalised. Should it be? With the capital letter it reads like the cat's name is "Tipperary But"? People call their cats all sorts of things, mind.

Maybe you could insert another "cat" toward the end of S2 to rhyme with "that" (and "flat"). Maybe, "He's had enough, this cat."?

best,

Matt

[Joe Crocker]

Thanks for taking the trouble, Matt.

Happy to lose the ellipses.

I can't say that the limping metre was planned, but when it came out that way I quite liked it. I think the questions that Max and Jim asked about whether light verse can carry this kind of subject matter would be even more pointed if I properly regularised all the metre and rhymes. I wanted enough of those things in there to get a sense of an old toy, now broken, a halting musical box thing.

Yes by "epiparasitic" I meant "ectoparasitic" and even that should probably refer to Tipper himself as an ectoparasite on his "owner's" skin rather than a creature that itself is plagued by them. But again, I was playing with a slightly silly internal rhyme with arthritic. It's not a word most of us use very much and I think the sense I'm after is fairly clear. Will change to "ectoparasitic"

I have also uncapitalised “But”

Thanks again for your sharp eyes and ears.

Joe