Poems

Collected by MLE

FUN

His amiable eyes
Are very friendly, very wise:
Like Buddha, grave and fat,
He sits, regardless of applause,
And thinking, as he needs his paws,
What fun to be a cat!

-Christopher Morley

 

THE WAY OF A CAT

When I first saw you at my door,
A homeless kitten, starved and poor,
Your eyes were very scared and wide-
You hardly dared to come inside.
But afterward when you had dined,
You grew quite happily resigned:
Much like a child you sought my lap
And snuggled down to take a nap.
Time passed and you became quite gay
And played and romped the livelong day.
But all too quickly you outgrew
The spool and string I gave to you,
And went on weird nocturnal jaunts-
Dark alleys were your favorite haunts.
And now that you are worldly wise,
You sit aloof with half closed eyes,
And scarcely ever pay much heed
To me, except in times of need.
And then you softly purr and raise
Your eyes to mine in pleading gaze
For plates of cream and bits of meat,
(I fear, at times, you show deciet,)
Some say you are a hypocrite,
I love you though, in spite of it.

-Margaret E. Bruner

THE TOM CAT (The Rum Tum Tugger?)

At midnight in the ally
A tomcat comes to wail,
And he chants the hate of a million years
As he swings his snaky tail.

He will lie on a rug tomarrow
And lick his silky fur,
And veil the brute in his yellow eyes
And play he's tame and purr.

But at midnight in the ally
He will crouch again and wail,
And beat the time for demon's song
With the swing of his demon's tail.

-Don Marquis

KITTEN UP A TREE

A pole! a ladder! anything!
Arouse the sleepy town!
Oh, who is brave enough to bring
The frightened kitten down?

Enamored of the moving shade
And for the giddy leaf,
How could she know a clever maid
So soon might come to grief?

We saw her mount the bough
At her fastidious ease.
And there was none to tell her how
Inexorable are trees,

As up the slippery avenue
She delicately went,
Occasionally pausing to
Admire her own ascent.

And now she shivers on a limb.
Her little claws are blunted,
And helpless pussy by two grim
Finalities confronted.

The tossing branch will not be still;
The trunk is dead and steep.
For going back she has no skill,
No courage for the leap.

A ladder quickly!!Someone come!
We lose the dwindling light.
Ah, who will save the kitten from
This most atrocious plight?

-Phyllis McGinley

THE RULE

There is a rule about cats:if you have only one cat, you become a cat.
The universe is the cat and you, and the cat does not differentiate.
If you have two cats they relate primarily to each other. 
If you have three or more, I think you don't exist at all.
The cats become a tribe unto themselves.

-David McReynolds

BAST (MLE's favorite)

She had little green eyes, that excellent seer,
And little peaks to either ear.
She sat there and I sat here.

She spoke of Egypt, and a white
Temple, against enormous night.

She smiled with clicking teeth and said
That the dead were never dead;

Said old emperors hang like bats
In barns at night, or run like rats-
But empresses come back as cats!

- William Rose Benet

A TOM CAT AGING

The old tom cat sits by the fire
Licking his curled up paws,
Blinking in quiet contentment,
stretching his whiskered jaws...

The years have been favorable to him.
He still has his well groomed fur;
His eyesight's as keen as ever;
He still has his masculine purr...

And yet there is one thing that plagues him,
He's noticed it once or twice...
Time has been gradually breeding
A speedier race of mice.

-Mary Alice Loberg

THE CAT

The sleeping cat
Begins to stir,
Stretches her legs
In front of her...
Opens her eyes
A narrow slit,
Swishes her tail
And watches it...
Then up she gets
On velvet paws,
Arches her back,
Opens her jaws...
Then breathing one
Long boring sigh,
Away she pads
With tail held high.

-Alice Caroline Smith

These poems are wonderful