The Owl & the Pussycat, 2011, 39″ x 27″ x 7″- assemblage & foto by Smith

The Owl & the Pussycat Have Sex

Such a strange love this fowl and feline
this bond between cat and bird
in waters deep beyond their reach
a heck of a hoot
in their catbird heat
with a fine feathered furring for each.

Except that
this part here
won’t fit that part there
and just where does what enter what
and if they do
and these things merge
do their children
an egg-fur-flux future share?

Or if cat and bird
choose even stranger loon
perhaps they’d do it doggie style
while howling, hooting
and meowing at the moon.

— Smith, 8.28.2011

Titled my new assemblage The Owl & the Pussycat, so wrote this send-off poem to christen it into this fairy tale-less world.

Check out the original poem by Edward Lear which he wrote in 1871 for the 3-year old daughter of a friend . . . I’ve included it after the following fotos.

The Owl & the Pussycat, 2011, 39″ x 27″ x 7″- assemblage & fotos by Smith

The Owl and the Pussycat
– by Edward Lear, 1871

I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

II
Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III
‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

I just love that dancing by the light of the moon stuff. An unfinished sequel, The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat, was published posthumously in 1938. This is what made me wonder how owl and pussycat cohabitated, how they did their catbird bop.