Highbrow cat-stroking

Acquire a cat. Speak each line aloud and slowly. At the beginning of the line start stroking at the head of the cat and reach the back end by the end of the line. Simple! Even Modernist poets could do it.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

1. ^ Don't go the other way or you will never get to line 2.
2. ^ T. S. Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', Collected Poems 1909-1962, Faber and Faber, London 1963. p. 13, ll. 15-22.