The River and the Black Cat by James Sutherland-Smith

Sixty-four improvisations, whose principle motifs are a stretch of a small river in Central Europe and a once feral black cat, navigate the language that we inhabit and that inhabits us. Three philosophers or the three musketeers, Boris Karloff, Li Bai and an Indian companion, among others, ghost in and out of poems ordered according to the progress of the seasons. Their moods and perspectives range from the inconsequential and paradoxical to the melancholic and erotic. Almost all the poems are in some measure love poems.

 

Later the sky will be a light blue yearning 

for the transcendence to which the river whispers. 

I kiss your throat. 

The black cat chases herself up and down the stairs. 

Shall we get up, shower and dress 

or otherwise, nakedness being no constraint 

on the best or worst we can do?