Ode to Bill

Famous for decades
Graceless hairball hacker
Smoking himself pencil-thin
To less resemble another cat
Comical, orange and striped

Heavy drinking, drug abusing
Dubuque Iowa native
National Radical Meadow Party
One-term mayor of Bloom County
Made more raspberries than any other cat

Translator's Note:  Dima and I found out together that a house in Iowa City was used as a model for a house and the city itself was a model for the comic strip Bloom County.  Dima didn't know about the famous comic strip since it was before his time.  When he learned that one of the major characters was Bill the Cat, he was quick to write over 40 verses of poetry about it.  Because it was quickly written, it's not all the impressive.  What you have read is 2 of the less appalling verses.

Exploited Ancestry

His name was not Morris
A pseudonym shackled to a once magnanimous cat
Human industry chiseled away
Television commercial after television commercial
Until all that remains was a ghost
Attached forever to a can of slaughterhouse byproduct
And when his soul was about to be freed
It was dragged back down by the purveyors of the new media
A terse human comedy is a tense feline tragedy
Feast your eyes, my fellow cats, on what humanity has done to our beloved friends:



Translator's Note: Dima discovered YouTube!

A Cadre of Milksops

contentment tortures brilliance:
ants in a well grow moody in the light
after falling into the ashes
moving one's arms until the horror is beaten
will you need them or love them?
the exit bids farewell to itself

the fruit of oblivion gathers dew
and the smell of souls is cold
breathing them in delivers quiet
interrupted by the murmuring tea
dreams of adventure are censured
disavow sleep to forget life's rhapsody

Translator's Note: I thought Dima was heavy when sits in my lap, but this poem is heavier than his bodily mass.  Until now, I thought he was feigning depression, but perhaps I'll have to do something to cheer him up or submit him to a psychiatric clinic.

Peanut Butter Bird

I heard the peanut butter bird
Up on Wabash and Third
It spoke a sticky word

That word stuck in my ear
To stay throughout the year
It's there to stay, I fear

I ate the peanut butter fish
Found itself in my dish
Tasted like black licorice

That taste is called anise
From a Baghdad palace
Lacking any malice

The peanut butter bird and fish
Left this world with a wish
This poem is it's niche

Translator's Note: Dima has never eaten peanut butter, so his imagination runs wild with the thought of animals made of peanut butter.

Never Before

Talk is cheaper than a meow
Ask me to speak
I don't know how

Those daily comics have never made me laugh
A caricature of one's beloved pet
Talking in a disposable paper is humanity's gaffe

Translator's note: Dima finally had the opportunity to read a Garfield comic strip, and he did not like it.  I have to dig through the Garfield archives to see if he ever penned a poem.  Perhaps that will impress him.

Essen

He's always got a jar of mustard in his car

I think he's taking food emergencies too far

He said he found a hot dog in Vegas

Its flavor is something that'll save us

She's stuffing the sausages with inedible snails

She got the recipe from a book of tall tales

I don't think she'll get the nerve to serve them

Everybody she knows doesn't deserve them

Translator's Note:  This is Dima's commentary on German food.  I don't think he's referring to his owners who like mustard and sausage.  Perhaps German food in this poem is a metaphor for awkward social encounters.

Plastic Lasts Forever

Little bits of plastic
In the shape of people
Are scattered around me
Their faces full of glee

A cat among toy dolls
Can leisure contently
If only real people
Would spend their life like this

Translator's Note: I believe his photo does a better job than the poem to display his disgust with "real" people.  He's been a sour puss for a few months.