This is a reprint from an article by Glynn Young, originally published at Tweetspeak Poetry.

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It’s rather startling: a recurring line in poetry that reads “I could pee on that.”

Charles Bukowski, perhaps? Sandra Bernhard waxing softly poetic?

Nope. A cat.

I Could Pee on This

Her new sweater doesn’t smell of me
I could pee on that
She’s gone out for the day and
left her laptop on the counter
I could pee on that
Her new boyfriend just pushed
my head away
I could pee on him
She’s ignoring me ignoring her
I could pee everywhere
She’s making up for it
by putting me on her lap
I could pee on this
I could pee on this

That’s the title poem of I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano. You may have heard of him; when he’s not recording poems by cats, he’s co-authoring the comic strip Sally Forth. Marciuliano writes the strip; Craig Macintosh draws it. The strip has no cats; those are saved for this book.

Growing up, I was a dog person. My family always seemed to have one, usually mixed breeds. We never had a cat.

My wife and I were married four months and living in Texas when our first cat came on the scene, a kitten huddled under a bush near the mailboxes of our apartment complex. No one else was around. I put up signs saying she was found. The signs were torn down. After the kitten became an adult, a friend charitably described her as looking like a silver polishing cloth. She also had the personality of a silver polishing cloth.

Every poem in I Could Pee on This is true.

Our cat lived until she was almost 18 years old. She was one sturdy silver polishing cloth.

A few years after her death, a black cat (a male) wandered into the neighborhood. The neighborhood children, including our youngest son, took pity and fed the cat milk and potato chips. A late cold snap promised to drive temperatures below zero, and my wife took pity. She allowed the cat to spend the night in our garage.

Thank you, my wife. To a homeless cat, that’s a sign of immediate adoption. The cat was so grateful that he left my wife a present on the doorstep – a headless bunny.

The cat moved in.

The only poetry book about cats I’ve previously been aware of was T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Books of Practical Cats, which inspired the musical Cats. But Eliot wrote those poems. There’s no question that the poems of I Could Pee on This were written by cats.

Published in 2012, it’s a laugh-out-loud collection. The poems are divided into four sections: family, work, play, and existence. Which means they are mostly about sleeping.

It’s 8 a.m. and time to rest
It’s 10 a.m. and time to relax
It’s noon and time for repose
It’s 3 p.m. and time for shut-eye
It’s 6 p.m. and time for siesta
It’s 9 p.m. and time to slumber
It’s midnight and time to snooze
It’s 4 a.m. and time to hang upside down
from your bedroom ceiling, screaming

This is a tell-it-like-it-truly-is collection of poems about cats and by cats. At the end of the month, Marciuliano is publishing I Could Chew on This – poems by dogs. At least there will be some balance.

Except with cats, no such thing as balance exists. Even a book like I Could Take You to the Taxidermist: And Other Poems by Cat Owners still wouldn’t be sufficient to counter cats.

Cats rule. And they know it.

Photo by pedrosimoes7, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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