UNCLUTTERING YOUR LIFE, IS THAT LIKE UNCLUTTERING MY FEELINGS?

 " October Cats"

     I must have taken this poem literally but it not only confused me but the implications were not good either.  It's a short poem.  I actually liked the poem "The Dogs in the Dutch Paintings" because it was so simple to understand.

     In "October Cats" the poem is describing their colors in the images of food. One cat reminded her of graham crackers and milk, which is food.  Another cat reminded the author "Rachal Hadas" of cornbread, another type of food.  Then another 

cat was like peaches and cream.  I am good with this poem so far, then the author asks if anybody is hungry?  I do not like the implications of this or understand where she is going with this.  I can understand her relating the colors of the cats to food, until she hits the question about somebody being hungry yet.  She wrote about several other cats of different colors but the question, "who would have  thought we were so famished for the tawny, the caressable?".

     It is not that cats are my favorite animal to have around but connecting their colors to food is disturbing, especially when she speaks of anybody being hungry.  She also made the statement of their skin from the phrase "all lit alabaster from within".  This sounds like a sick joke but we all know too well, that there are actually cultures that do eat cats as well as dogs. I was very frustrated with this poem, somewhat confused and I did not like it.

     Then she wrote of the cats not laying around the floor anymore or on anything.  All of them gone for the coming season.  Her last statement in the poem was too mystifying for me "they configure for the coming season into shapes of meatloaf, tugboat, owl".  This was the end of the poem.  I take things literally so this did not set well at all with me.  This is where I really lost my whole perspective with this poem.  Meatloaf is a food, so that could be contemplative.  The tugboat was a total mystery.  The owl maybe the cat eyes in another form.

     I just could not connect the tugboat or where that would even fit in, unless the cats were going on a tugboat trip and that would be considering alive or dead with their alabaster skins.  I missed whatever she was trying to say.  This was one poem that not only made me angry, complexed and confused, but a very distasteful poem.

     I have read this poem over and over.  I have read it to other people.  Nobody so far, likes it at all.  I have read it so many times trying to see if there is something between the lines I may be missing.  I could not explain this poem but I did realize they were no longer laying around on the floor and they had changed to something, but what actually happened to them was confusing and unnerving.  It was really the tugboat, so opposite of an owl, a meatloaf.  This is what I just could not see as being part of this poem.  The only way I could figure it to be was transport.  This was totally out of context for me and I won't say I hate this poem, but I did not understand it.  It was not appealing to any person I read it to, or to me. 

     I have many questions about this poem.  Why she related them to food was okay, but all the alabaster skins, I need answers there.  Where did the tugboat fit in?  The owl maybe because of the eyes or maybe sweeping down to grab the cats.  If you have an interpretation of this poem, I would like to hear it, without getting Freudian on me. Does anybody have any information for me on this poem?  It is written by a female that has numerous awards.  It makes me think about getting my poems in the public if they print a poem like this.