CATS
Sometimes seen together
As a clotted mess:
A soft intertwining,
A clowder of caress.
On back streets or alleys
In feral wantonness
Or glaring at intruders
From a garden fence.
More often we revere them
Individually
As characters
Of unique personality:
Obdurate
But also charming therapy;
Loving
But dark in shrouded mystery.
One day in church a daring cat
Appeared upon the alter
During an esoteric verse
From the holy psalter.
The vicar said, “Well bless my soul!”
And called her Esmerelda.
She belonged to a clairvoyant
By the name of Madame Zelda.
And Zelda was a witch who had
Demonised a soldier.
Whenever her shifty cat appeared
The air would feel much colder.
It could walk right through a stuccoed wall
And purr upon your shoulder
Then vanish into endless night
If you should try to hold her.
Samuel Buttermilk the Third
Was engaged to a prickly Persian pus
Companion to an opera singer.
That boy was a shame-faced wuss:
Incubating his title like a constipated turd
Or like an aging jelly fish
Nursing redundant stingers;
Rendering it totally absurd!
But the Persian, well …
She was a real hum-dinger!
Seductively hot and languorous,
Almost naked, just delicately furred;
When she entered a room, Silence!
No one said a word.
They just looked on in rapture
As she gently purred.
Then there was Marmaduke,
Who was greedy and stole the mince,
Trapped his head in the bag while running:
Obsessively frightened of plastic ever since.
Finally, the harrowing tale
Of murderous Jock McTavish
With matted fur
And one eye missing:
About as cuddly as a rotting radish;
With his hoarse-throated hissing,
“Hee-och-ter”:
Not much of a tal-ker;
More of a night-stalker,
A bar-brawler,
A kerb-crawler,
A hedge trawler,
Gobbling-up innocent, hapless chicks
Or any rodent he can;
Tail-up, pissing out behind
At a rusty tin can.
As thorny as a spiv,
As silent as a shark,
His menacing ugliness
As gaunt and ghastly
As a Ghost-a-Rican.
His thick black whiskers
Blood-starched;
The fur sticking up on his thin back,
Trembling and arched
Like the last Mohican.
M R McBride
Summer 2019
I enjoyed this poem, each character was so well portrayed.
I enjoyed this poem, each character was clearly portrayed