"The Naming of Cats"

[jack_babalon]

The Naming Of Cats
T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.




Sunday's Midnight. Close the door. Crack a window. Turn off the light and strip down. I feel beautiful like this, when the skin soaks in the darkness, the flesh made invisible perfect. This must be how the cats feel, a hidden hunter naked and dangerous. I collapse across my bed and wait to see who'll win: Sleep or the alarm clock. Eventually I find myself listening to the CSX wailing out some lonesome song, picked up & carried by a stray wind, drifting across the long miles of street & city, only to end up crashing here in soft waves against the shores of my room. Lullaby dirge of the freight engine America, the ghost song of a distant south sailing down the rusted steel rivers of the bible belt night. Thoughts slowing and sinking down, a shipwreck survivor floating in the ocean, too tired to tread water anymore, prayers before drowning, deeper and deeper, hypnogogic poetry whispering genius words I forget on waking. I can myself falling, slipping, and i'm going now
...I'm going now
......DOWN

...........Deeper and deeper

.................DOWN.

.........Deeper and Deeper.

down

.......drifting across dreams
across seas of memory


My family used to have a cat named Janissary.The Janissary was the name of an elite bodyguard troop that have served the Sultans of the Ottoman empire since the early years of the 14th century, until their demise in the 1800's. This elite corps was comprised of captured Christians and young prisoners of war who had been retrained to serve the growing empire. These conscripted non-muslims served with honor and distinction for the better part of 500 years, capturing Constantiople in 1453, defeating the Egyptian Mameluks and serving with distinction in the campaigns waged in Austria. My Father named the cat, and I never really understood why. Maybe like the Janissaries themselves, he was an infidel, an outsider that had been pressed into service for the Mini-Ottoman empire of Me, Mom & Dad, and in the few years I knew him he served with both honor & distinction. Among his many responsibilities the most important was Ghost-Watch. You see my parents would try and placate my bedtime fears by telling me that all cats, but especially this one, could see the invisible movements of the dead and act as an early warning system for the supernatural. My parents, for reasons i've never quite fathomed, loved to tell me ghost storys. They were very good at it too, I would lay in bed paralyzed with fear seeing things crawl in and out of shadows. Strange monsters would try and crawl through the windows, emerge out of the closet and under the bed, and when I hid under the sheets in the vain hope that they wouldn't be able to see me, they'd sit there perched on the corner of my bed giggling at my foolishness. But then Janissary would step into my room, making his nocturnal rounds while the folks were sleeping, purring steadily, confidently he'd hop on my bed and tell me~
"Listen kid! Ain't no needs to be scared. There ain't no spooks in this apartment. I'd be more worried 'bout the cockroaches than some sad sack of a ghost if I was you."
"But...Jan!" I'd whisper from under the sheets shielded by my poor suffocating poohbear "Over there in the corner I just saw Johnny Redcap walk by..."
For those who need to know, I had the bad habit of perusing my parents book collection, and often would find myself going through their "Fairy" book which consisted mostly of gnomes and sprites and all that other kind of thing, but in it were also the green skinned goblin things that waited for wicked children to go by and snatch them off the path and drag them down to the marsh where they'd drown them slowly or just toss them in a sack and pick the flesh off their bones for a snack. Out of all these scary victorian horros there was one that got to me the most: JOHNNY REDCAP whose flesh was a rotten green yellow and in the picture of the book, he held a large scythe ready to swing out of the page and strike down the reader, and peering with these angry wide eyes straight at me.
"Nah kid" Jan says in his thick New York accent "Take a look ain't nothin' over there but a pile of clothes."
I don't move and whiper-"No... they'll see me."
He pokes his face under the sheets and blankets.
"Then they can see me too right?"
"uhhh..."
"Right?"
"Right." I agree timidly.
"Then if they can see me, they must be too scared to do much 'bout it. Right?"
"I .. I guess."
"No need to guess. Take a gander for yerself kid. If anything goes down ... they'll have to go through me first."
Even in the shadows and the dark I can see his funny little face clearly. A feather white face with his fur spotted to look like he had a black goatee under his chin, giving him this world weary hipster look.
"Okay Jan. I'll do it if you say it's alright." With much trepadation I release my poohbear and grab the sheets and mustering all my courage I yank down the sheets ready for the worst.
"See" Jan says impatiently as he hops off my bed " Nothin' to worry 'bout kid. Now get some
sleep before your parents hear the racket your making and then you'll really have something
to get scared about."
"Alright Jan. Thank you."
"Heh. G'night kid."
....
...
Coming
... back
..... up
slow crawl
and the red numbers of the clock glow in front of me.
I listen.
No monsters.
No Janissary.
Just me and the wind in the window.
No one to protect me from the ghosts but myself.
Sleepless I wait for the dawn to come.