Black Cat
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 233 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXX XXXX ABAB XXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 682 |
Words | 128 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Black Cat" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29644/black-cat>.
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