Cats by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned
To rules or routes for journeys; counter
Attack with non-resistance; twist
Enticing through the curving fingers
And leave an angered empty fist.
They wait obsequious as darkness
Quick to retire, quick to return;
Admit no aim or ethics; flatter
With reservations; will not learn
To answer to their names; are seldom
Truly owned till shot or skinned.
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind.
Other works by A. S. J. Tessimond:
Some works by other modernist authors
- The Dark Cavalier by Margaret Widdemer
- The Colloquy Beneath by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- The Cat’s Song by Marge Piercy
- The Campera, the Foreigner y el Novio by Marjorie Kanter
- The Boy by Marilyn Hacker
- The Aegean by Maria Luisa Spaziani
- The Gate by Marie Howe
- The Copper Beech by Marie Howe
- Synchronicity by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Subjective Genocide by Marie Starr
- Subject to Change by Marilyn L. Taylor
- Spenser’s Ireland by Marianne Moore
- Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Silence by Marianne Moore
- Scars on Paper by Marilyn Hacker
- Rosemary by Marianne Moore
- Release by Marie Starr
- Reading Runes by Marina Cecilia Kohon
- Portrait in Black and White by Marjorie Kanter
- Poetry by Marianne Moore
- Peter by Marianne Moore
- Passion by Sera Jacob
- Paragraphs from a Day-Book by Marilyn Hacker
- Not out of the running by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- Nevertheless by Marianne Moore
- Nearly A Valediction by Marilyn Hacker
- My Mother’s Body by Marge Piercy
- My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance, 1981 by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
- Morning News by Marilyn Hacker
- Love Poem to My Husband of Thirty-one Years by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
- Locked Away by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- Labyrinth by Sera Jacob
- Iva’s Pantoum by Marilyn Hacker
- Island-Hearth by M. Ivana Trevisani Bach
- Irish Love Song by Margaret Widdemer
- Invocation by Marilyn Hacker
- If you should tire of loving me by Margaret Widdemer
- I Dream of my Grandmother and Great-Grandmother by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
- I Deserve It by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- Hurry by Marie Howe
- He Made This Screen by Marianne Moore
- Forever Closed by Margaret Marie Hubbard
- For the Young Who Want To by Marge Piercy
- For K. J., Leaving and Coming Back by Marilyn Hacker
- Exiles by Marilyn Hacker
- Desesperanto by Marilyn Hacker
- Dear Alzheimer’s by Maria Knox
- Colors Passing Through Us by Marge Piercy
- Children of My Own by Marie Starr
- Belly Good by Marge Piercy
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902 -1962) was an English poet. He had a tumultuous childhood, ran from boarding school, went to work, somehow attended the University of Liverpool, avoided service in WWI and then discovered that he is unfit for military service after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which in those days was known as manic depression. A.S. Tessimond is a wonderful poet though maybe somewhat underappreciated poet. He died from in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.