A POEM THAT USED TO HAVE 3663 LINES
BEFORE MY CAT ATE
MOST OF IT
by Raymond Federman


[The numbers indicate the fragments left of the original lines. The rest must by now be in the cat litter box. We regret not to be able to offer the complete poem at this time. We are working diligently at trying to fill the holes. As soon as the poem is pregnant again, so to speak, it will be made available. We beg your patience. Any help you can give in reconstituting this poem to its original shape will be greatly appreciated]

1.              We hve invnted a whol field of endevor:              reminding ech other of              wht w hve forgotten. Wht did you sy?

2. Mighty tired & disgusted I do the necessry work nywy then I stre or              np I try              to see how long I cn hold                           my breth                           Im getting better                           t it then I strt all over              gin.

3.              On the other side of the street the other one the smaller one the one with              the french ccent is counting his hert bet per minute ... the first minute he              counted 59 & 1/2 bets ... the second minute 12 & 3/4 he pnicked but the              third minute the counted 126 even ... he felt better but he wonders now if he shouldn't           worry?

74. The impulse is ded so is the ct the dog the left over beer in the opened                                                     bottle the ded chicken they te lst night so it goes.

231.              Remember the old Bedle song "will you still need me when we is 105?"                           Who cn member tht fr.

232.                           Shall we dance? Shall we take a shower? Do we dare ate a banana?              Shall we sing in the shower? Shall we....

1267.              I am not blue we are not blue they are not blue blue me blow me below                                                     me low me down paint me blue with your blue stockings so that my blue balls can be blowing again etc.

1278.                           This pom usd to hav 3663 lins bfor th cat at most of it. It was              so symmtrical                                                     and look at it now                                                     full of hols

1400.                       This poem used to be red but because of the rain it got discolored.

1402.                           Bum two asked bum one. Ace are you there? No Sam I'm not here.                                                                  Answered Ace.

1436.              Sam called the other day from paradise to say that up there                           everything is more real than everything.

             2121.                           Every day they take a brain blocker & a belly blocker but nothing helps              I am still constipated                           and when the two blockers collide it creates what              is called a writer's block damn if they are not blocked!

             3111.                           When I was an excon I used to brag about how I spent most of my life in chains in the slammer.         But free in my skull.

3435.              It is not a lie that when Honoré was on his deathbed he called the doctor                                                     he invented in his novel to come and save him but the doc couldn't come              because he was balling Madame Hanska in the adjoining room. The damn countess coul       't wait for Balz to die to become a myth.

             3212.              No Balz did not fuck the black panther at least not in the version published in SHORT STORIES -- CLASSIC, MODERN, CONTEMPORARY, Edited              by Marcus Klein & Robert Pack                                                                               for Little, n & Company,              Boston, 1967, pages 3-15, translated by R
                          ond Fe    e   man.              We can              prove it, we have the book.

3326.              what is a snuff novel                                                     ?

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Pub. May 2001

DRC