Here's the poem that began it all at the Get Me High Jazz Club. The Cat from the dark side of my personality. My moral outrage poem. My accusatorial poem. Marc Smith's indictment of the world!

I have stunned audiences with this poem. Three decades of repressed anger and self-pity packed into it and spewed out to groups of people who have reveled in its umbrage.

But there were also a few who heard something else -- hurt ... loneliness ... frustration ... confusion ... and ... a convulsion they (for some reason) needed to witness.

One of my most self-serving, vengeful convulsions occurred at a place called "Somewhere ..." or "Someplace Else" in Park Forest South.

A few years prior to my entry into the poetry world a friend and I participated in an open mike evening hosted by a fairly well- known feminist folk singer. I wasn'tt here to do poetry. In fact, I never uttered one word. -- I tooted my trumpet.

Yes! I knocked out "Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue" alongside my banjo-pluckin' buddy who sang sexy barroom lyrics to a disbelieving audience.

We had seen our starry destiny one night when we pulled our axes out at a friend's wedding reception. The guests -- climbing peaks of delirium ... rising from the straits of boredom without spilling a drop -- cheered us on.

"Play a nudder one. You're sens..sational. Da two-a-you ... or is dere four ... should go giggin' in one-a-dose clubs.

"In clubs?"

"You know, places like that joint down in Park Forest South.

What's it called? ... Somethin' ... Someplace Else?"

"Oh."

So we did. And we were the worst act ever to climb up on a stage anywhere in the U.S. of America. The famous folk singer stood agape trying to convince herself that she wasn't hallucinating. My sixth sense (that knack I have for knowing exactly what an audience is thinking and feeling) was well aware of how awful we were. But I tooted on.

Someone chirped out from the back, "One thing you guys got, is balls .... but that's about all."

We took our seats. Me fuming. My friend chug-a-lugging. And then, as if predestined to twist the knife even further, a snooty woman got up and read her "Turtle" poems to a standing ovation.

I was mortified.

Two years later I returned for revenge.

I had become very successful at the Green Mill Lounge and Get Me High Jazz Club. I was hot. And I knew I was hot. I had pulled the knife out of my chest and was ready to carve.

The famous folk singer brought me up to the stage after a fuzzy rendition of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" (They didn't remember me. I was just another open mike participant.) First, I asked for the houselights to be dimmed. They frowned but did so. Then, I stood back from the spots in the murk allowing the shadows to drape over me. A blot of intense blue light illuminated my eyes and another drip of red ran down my neck and when I let loose, the greater part of that audience thought that Charlie Manson had come to pay their sweet show a visit and let them know just exactly what the world is really like. They were stunned.

It's you, Cat,

Cat on the coffin

Watching the pendulum swing,

A paw up slapping,

Trailing the unraveled part,

Stalking the dead man's brains

and finding a cold gray knot

Looking up and out

at the pallbearers' hearts.

It's you, Cat,

Cat felis catus catus

Scrounging near the twilight

for the already dead,

Claiming the troth

of the undertaken souls

While the weeping acidic rain

Taps hats forever.

It's you, amoral children,

Suppressing your fantastic fears,

Bending to peer inside the shiny box

Where a ludicrous shape

Begins to arise --

The cat-head winks.

Eyes grow wide.

Lips shout faceless,

"Be mine! Be mine!"

It's you, Doctor Spade,

Slipping your wiry brown fingernail

down the hip of her jeans,

Poking and dragging the egg yolk out.

Tomorrow's baby, a grappled breakfast.

It's you, cocaine fool,

Sniff-snortin' to feel so good

about so damn little

when you got so much,

Just wishin' your nostrils

were stainless steel

And your mind

a Pillsbury cake.

It's you, mid-morning American jogger,

wearing the shelves of J C Penny's

Like the stripes of your flag.

It's you, bike-outlaw,

Smelling of pig grease, Quaker State,

and Gulf Supreme,

Tattooing the buttocks of JoJo's little sister,

Head-giver whenever you please.

It's you, old veteran at the VFW Hall,

wrapping your loose lips around

another smudged glass of gin,

Bemoaning Tommy Dorsey's demise,

Foaming up a bromide lyric

Before your bowed head

makes a wrinkle on the rail.

It's you, subscribers to a thousand magazines.

And you,

the writers for a thousand magazines.

And you,

the publishers of anything that sells.

And you, the buyers of little children

On super-eight film video-cassettes

Color ! Sound !

It's you, hot-tubbers,

Finding it easier to suck

in the rush of a whirlpool

Than to speak

after the pleasure has passed.

It's you, Pink Hands Pink Face White Ass,

Screaming and stomping your feet.

The Old Blues Picker in the red silk shirt

taps his long

flat

toe

And you want to screammmmmmmm

him out of his addiction

But he just closes

his

narcotic

eyes.

It's you, nigger,

Bein' nigger,

Callin' the nigger downstairs

"NIGGER!"

While you poke your nigger

Roscoe, to his bride.

It's you, actress

With the commercial hair, com-

Mercial lips, commercial skin, commer-

Cial smile, commercial sin

Cerity.

It's you, Cowboy-Sailor-Skier,

Player of football, basketball,

Tennis, baseball, hockey.

It's you, up there on the sixty-ninth floor,

Drinking Chateau Au Briand

From a newspaper thin glass,

Listening to Rachmaninoff,

Waiting for some Chicano sister

To come lick your Chopin.

It's you, Pork Chop

firing your twenty-two caliber pistol

at the front porch family

from your buddy's beat-up wagon,

avenging some asshole cousin's outrage

over a dead dog bludgeoned

by a blackjack pulled

from his sister's purse.

It's you, clowny politician

cultivating your crawl space

with the humus of little boys,

while bouncing aerobic dancers

fry Friday nights by the ounce

dreaming of the morning

when the dance will be over

and the feeding

Can 1 2 3 next begin!

It's you, disco partners,

counterpointing the wiggles of your hips

in unison with a world that marvels

at such profound rhythms.

It's you, pumping iron in the basement,

preparing for the fifteenth year

when your Daddy upstairs

will no longer pump

your mother's face

bloody.

It's you shop-lifted children,

Taken away to sodomized slowly

And then slaughtered on the silver screen.

It's you, all of you,

Divided and sub-divided,

divided again

Split into units

smaller

Than the smallest

pronoun.

It's you

The cat has dragged you in.

He'll feast on you tomorrow.

The Cat, the hardcase cat,

Cat on the Coffin.

You're string between his teeth.