I.
The ethicist posed the question:
If you could save only one from a burning building,
Which would you save: a Rembrandt or a cat?

The given answer is the cat,
because the cat is alive.

But only the half-dead think art's dead.
And a poet never picks.
The right response is both.

"When faced with a choice between two, pick both."
Corso, dead too, taught that to Holman, who taught me.
Tuck the art under your arm, clutch the cat, and save them both.

 

II.
Your lawyer will help us get inside your place
The aboveboard way
But if we had to, we'd break in, bust windows, slink inside
To rescue your poetry and your cat.

What a dead man leaves behind:

Poetry and a cat.
Intellect and instinct.

Poetry and a cat.
Language and the supralingal.

Poetry and a cat.
The formal and the feral.

Like our love for you,
Formal and feral.

Like our debt to you,
Formal and feral.

Like our words for you,
Formal and feral.

Like our grief for you,
Formal and feral.

 

as it appears on CaféMo.com