2024 NaPM 26 April

[RiverNotch]

Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month.

Write about a cat.

[Mark A Becker]

Our cat sat
at the back door,
thinking,
what about?

He just sat there
staring,
then turned
and said,

“meowt.”


Merlin

You’re just a cat, and lord
of no country, yet you are a guardian
in the hall- a nocturnal magician
performing early a.m. sleight of paw.

Your eye beams scan each shadow,
and you slink up on any noisy window.
Committed to your secret plan, each corner
remains at your command.

Always ready to console, though you keep
your people in your control, each one
gets to play their role; you tolerate
those who behave.

You guide each hand with silent demand;
nudge your head for indulgent petting,
and firm scratching behind yours ears.
You measure time in naps, not years.



R.I.P. Merlin 2002-2020

[TranquillityBase]

Letter to Krazy Kat

i wish i was in the desert with you
i’m missing those mesas in the moonlight,
those lonesome cactus
where so often you find love
at the flying end of a brick.
of course a suitable wall will do as well,
that Ignatz loves walls
those monuments to his favorite
his only projectile.
And i long to travel Herriman’s
impossible zig-zag landscapes and and adobe
with eyes wide open.
most of all
i want to read again your lovely lilting “langwige”
as you might name it.
No other Kat can ever compare
to Krazy.

i wish i was in the desert with you
I’m missing those mesas in the moonlight,
those lonesome cactus
where so often you find love
at the flying end of a brick.
of course a suitable wall will do as well,
that Ignatz loves walls
those monuments to his favorite
his only projectile.
And Herriman’s
impossible New Mexican architecture
in both landscape and town.
And most of all
I miss your lovely lilting “langwige”
as you might name it.
No other Kat can ever compare
to Krazy.

[dukealien]

Letter to Krazy Kat

i wish i was in the desert with you
I’m missing those mesas in the moonlight,
those lonesome cactus
where so often you find love
at the flying end of a brick.
of course a suitable wall will do as well,
that Ignatz loves walls
those monuments to his favorite
his only projectile.
And Herriman’s
impossible New Mexican architecture
in both landscape and town.
And most of all
I miss your lovely lilting “langwige”
as you might name it.
No other Kat can ever compare
to Krazy.

Beautiful.  Moving as a pot of Tiger Tea.

[dukealien]

About C


She was black, mostly,
long-haired with perhaps
a hint of Persian
one or two white paws
white face
and a little black mustache
like Hitler’s or
like Charlie Chaplin
which is why everyone
called her “Charlie”
despite her more formal
and more feminine name
no one could remember.

Her disposition was
more on the Adolf side
(though he smiled a lot
which she did not)–
dominating any other cats
in the household
and the dogs as well
not by tooth or claw
but unbreakable attitude.

Years and years in
when I cleaned her box
it smelled like death
and I could barely coax her
from the bedroom carpet
to her bowl: her head turned
slowly back and forth repetitively
like a car back-window ornament
or a broken Animatronic
but she still gave me
The Look.

She’s buried, I believe,
on the property near two guinea pigs
named Frodo and Gandalf
on their headstones
which predeceased her by decades.
Good thing– she would have terrorized
the two in afterlife
not by pursuit
but with that icy stare
saying she would
if she could be bothered.

[RiverNotch]

The problem is we've never had a cat,
and even if I lived vicariously through others,
half that living would still be nearly dying
breathless due to allergies.

One of my online followings, he buys
a load of antihistamines each month
aside from all the extra food and water
and, of course, the litter,

the toys, especially the replacements
for all the torn up sheets and scratched up posts
left behind in his so-called baby's wake.
The problem is, in fact,

we already have four dogs,
one of whom always hurries up the stairs
whenever the local foundlings congregate
into a loud destruction on our roof.

[Wjames]

Waking on a friend’s couch
to the cat at your feet,
you do not belong.

[busker]

O ye bankers
ye wankers -
cat people all
yet coughing up no money,
only a furball
for the masses,
lazy asses,
on the dole all day.

Ye who toil and
turn, roil and
burn, in the seething May
in your shiny steel buildings
like double glazed glass guildings,
like colonials unyielding
in the heat of Mandalay.

Though the natives be toiling
to keep your kettle boiling,
the partridges from spoiling
that you shot with the Vicar of Bray,
‘tis your grief alone matters,
your bonuses in tatters,
not the state of Thames’s waters,
that’s a problem for another day.