Cat Pierro

Pitches for Poems

This orientation toward stickiness explains the obnoxious prevalence of rhymes in poetry, though similar devices exist at all levels of depth beneath the surface—past the poem’s sound structure into its network of semantic echoes and “all the way down.”

The Beginning of a Beautiful Psychoanalytic Relationship

to my dismay he gestures - why am I here - the attempt to state X - a baby gift would be - once we settle on a number - primarily of names, plus some boxes - is the memo for the person - getting the hang

Sketchy Joe

He preferred to be called Joseph - « the only thing I ever heard about him was that he described himself as a lesbian trapped in a man’s body » - she knew him well enough to get in a car with him - « I AM NOT WRITING AN ARTICLE BASHING SKETCHY JOE » - I can’t locate my own desire among the forces

The Bully

she would knock me over - « By the way— » « Yes, I know, » - but in our favorite life to reconstruct we were horselike - DID TOO, YOU DID TELL ME - bahahahahahaha OMG im in love with this!!

INTRODUCTION: SWEET NOTHINGS

Different People Are the Same?

comparing DNA - the last two people left on earth - in spite of other mouth-parts - chief among hermeneutic principles - less optimistic - maybe we won’t, but that doesn't mean we can’t

INTRODUCTION TO STUPIDITY (BY THE STUPID, FOR THE STUPID)

Inside Out

plot the lips’ journey - for a boy to critique a girl - against self-involvement - not able to be sick - open the dictionaries and the maps - typically the size of a pebble - fluid near the disturbance - 10 meters in diameter - stony, iron, and stony-iron - gaps in the bands of color - devoid of reader subjectivity

The Elder’s Touch: A Scene from The Brothers Karamazov

monastery to monastery - he sees his mother’s tears, and he rejoices - the loss of a son and the lack of a son - the gradual realignment of attachments - could the elder help the mother with words? - a frantic soul - there is nothing to cry about, our little boy is in heaven - « I’d hide in a corner » - you are not required to be selfish - an old joke about a lodger - « you have all already returned your debts » - people do not just go away

Divertissement

Boredom is caused by - proof of his actual nothingness - « a dreadful desert island » - a victim of custom - « infinitely removed from the edge » - a final consistent base to build a tower that reaches to infinity - like a vacuum

In the Event of the Unexpected Onset of Retrograde Amnesia

a sense of my values - ever more secrets in all the wrong places - help getting home/warm/fed - don’t blame it on your amnesia - just with his emphases - his interest in this project of telling you things - soak each other up - a skeletal narrative of your past

Changes

the morphing process - the two-hour time limit - you wanted to stay human - a tiger mind engrossed in tiger thoughts - easy to dismiss the Animorphs - out of touch with their own species - subjected to your past

The Only Good Elephant

« I have always been a liar » - the stink of falsity - the elephant, blinking and sweating - let’s make him wince a little - « But fellows, it’s true! » - the air clears

Something Is Sought

what sort of novel is like life? - « the form of fiction most in vogue » - the narrator as a low-flying bird - charismatic distance - the way of true friends - a thing that burrows into the heart

The Infamy of Agrippina

some offenses are worse than capital - damnatio memoriae - « Let him kill me—provided he becomes emperor! » - a fascinating piece of gossip - a sex life subordinated to a political life - only a fear of posterity could have kept her vice in check - a poorly enacted shipwreck - « Strike here! »

Capture Yourself Alive

unreduced—an eyesore - full of details, often trapping details - beauty as consolation prize - an ordinary word like « talking » and invest it with a meaning that makes it hard - a desert - an erection - rumination vs. reflection - capture for the sake of capture

Afterthought on “...or be eaten”

eat the person

a lover’s lie - what we really want is - our enormous, vague sentiment - a comfortable distance - your friends would freak out - desperate, impossible experiments