La Chatte Noire - The Black Cat

                                                        Theophile Steinlen's 1896 poster

This is an old poem, written in Cork over twenty five years ago. The poet John Sexton assured me that he saw it published in The Cork Review or some publication like that, back in the day. I have no recollection of ever seeing it published, I was living in Cork at the time but I had no links of any literary kind. I detested the whole Open Mic thing, I remember. My literary role models were Beckett & Joyce, so …Silence… was ‘my’ thing. Hilarious, looking back on it. “Yeah, how was that working out for ya’?” I ask my younger self now.

I had been away in France for over five years, so my spoken French was pretty fluent. I had given the language up after I received a No Grade in the intermediate exam. My French teacher at the time was an absolute disaster, as was I, of course. So, when put together… However, spending so many years working over there was wonderful for my spoken French, I didn’t really read that much, I was too busy, until I came back home.

When I wrote this poem, being able to write in French was very important to me. I wanted to write as many poems as I could in the language, for as a poet and a writer it was an excellent way of learning more about how to use language and words. Of course translation would eventually follow. I have always been interested in writers who were multilingual, and so who could come in and out of languages, like actors do when they enter into different characters, in films or plays. Having another language at your disposal just makes you more competent, it's another weapon, or tool, in your arsenal, as it were.

Of course, with the second language comes a second culture to draw on too. As an Irish person who does not speak Irish but whose mother tongue is English instead, being able to speak a second language like French gives you a better insight into the completely artificial nature of human identity. It's also why you can’t fully conceive of ever becoming a nationalist. Or at least, not in any common way in which the word is usually understood to mean. All of which enables you to see things from an altogether different perspective. You become more objective, which is key, I think, in being a writer. Of course, this can go against you too!

This was the second successful poem I wrote in French, I think I’m right in saying that. Le chatte noire has all kinds of literary associations, there is the café of course in Paris but that is in the masculine form, so Chat Noir, whereas the poem’s title here is in the feminine form. I play with the masculine and feminine forms a lot, in the French. French grammar was and still is a total nightmare for me to understand. I’ve never really allowed myself the time to sit down and study it properly. As a language teacher myself I know the importance of doing this. Even a refresher course would be nice… But, you keep kicking that can down the road! I am content enough to be able to write the odd poem in French, it's not such an important thing for me anymore. Translation gives me the fix that I now need. 

I play with the meaning of chatte here also, it's rather a naughty poem, really! As a chatte in the feminine is also a way of saying a woman’s sex! YES. This is why I loved French poetry, and still do. You never see, or very rarely at least, poems written like this in English. At least not here in Ireland! It’s all still so hopelessly repressed, the poetry 'scene'. Joyce used the term paralysis on the very first page of his short story collection Dubliners which was published over one hundred years ago. But, has anything really changed? Seriously! Of course it hasn’t. And how do I know this? Because I’ve never had an actual book published there and I’ve been writing now for over thirty bloody years! That’s how I know. Good luck to youse... :)
      

La chatte noire

Pour CM

La chatte noire est le demon

Qui m’a empoisonné le sang,

Les seconds tombent mortes

Et vivantes en sa délicieuse compagnie.

Je me gorge de son nectar

Quand elle me prendre entre ses jambes,

Et ensemble nous retrouvons

La cadence du vent et du sable.

Après je la regarde en la caressant

Et je vois clairement la fin;

Os lavés par la mer sur une

Assiette avec un tête sans yeux.

Cork 1996

The Black Cat

For CM

The black cat is the demon

Which has poisoned my blood,

The seconds fall dead and alive

In her delicious company.

I gorge from her nectar

When she takes me between her legs,

And together we rediscover

The rhythm of the wind and sand.

After, I caress and watch her

And I can see clearly the diet;

Bones washed by the sea

On a plate with an eyeless head.

Cork 1996

This poem was published in Divertimento – The Muse is a Dominatrix published in France by mgv2>publishing in 2016, it is currently out of print.