Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PETER, by MARIANNE MOORE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Strong and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party Last Line: Tionthis is life; to do less would be nothing but dishonesty. Subject(s): Animals; Cats | ||||||||
STRONG and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party confronted by four cats, he sleeps his time awaythe detached first claw on his foreleg which corresponds to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds or katydid legs above each eye, still numbering the units in each group; the shadbones regularly set about his mouth, to droop or rise in unison like the porcupine's quillsmotionless. He lets himself be flat- tened out by gravity, as it were a piece of seaweed tamed and weakened by exposure to the sun; compelled when extended, to lie stationary. Sleep is the result of his delusion that one must do as well as one can for oneself; sleepepitome of what is to him as to the average person, the end of life. Demonstrate on him how the lady caught the dangerous southern snake, placing a forked stick on either side of its innocuous neck; one need not try to stir him up; his prune shaped head and alligator eyes are not a party to the joke. Lifted and handled, he may be dangled like an eel or set up on the forearm like a mouse; his eyes bisected by pupils of a pin's width, are flickeringly exhibited, then covered up. May be? I should say, might have been; when he has been got the better of in a dreamas in a fight with nature or with catswe all know it. Profound sleep is not with him, a fixed illusion. Springing about with froglike ac- curacy, emitting jerky cries when taken in the hand, he is himself again; to sit caged by the rungs of a domestic chair would be unprofit- ablehuman. What is the good of hypocrisy? It is permissible to choose one's employment, to abandon the wire nail, the roly-poly, when it shows signs of being no longer a pleas- ure, to score the adjacent magazine with a double line of strokes. He can talk, but insolently says nothing. What of it? When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment. It is clear that he can see the virtue of naturalness, that he is one of thoes who do not regard the published fact as a surrender. As for the disposition invariably to affront, an animal with claws wants to have to use them; that eel-like extension of trunk into tail is not an accident. To leap, to lengthen out, divide the airto purloin, to pursue. to tell the hen: fly over the fence, go in the wrong wayin your perturba- tionthis is life; to do less would be nothing but dishonesty. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOW THE MIRROR LOOKS THIS MORNING by HICOK. BOB THE LONELY MAN by RANDALL JARRELL IN SEVERAL COLORS by JANE KENYON OPENING HER JEWEL BOX by WILLIAM MATTHEWS HAZARD FACES A SUNDAY IN THE DECLINE by WILLIAM MEREDITH I MAY, I MIGHT, I MUST by MARIANNE MOORE |
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