Tag Archives: Poem about cats

How Many Cats?

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You’ll want to see these movie stars of cats better.  Just click on the first photo and the whole slide series will be larger. Click through series with right hand arrow.

 

How Many Cats?

How many cats would you say is enough?
With which added cat does the going get tough?
What number of cats is simply too many?
Some would say “Five,” while others say, “Any.”
My old cat thinks one is the ultimate number.
That’s her on the red cushion having a slumber.
But Kukla and Frannie and Ollie and Roo
think having five cats is the right thing to do.
Annie may hate them, but they are sanguine.
Their sibling act is a well-oiled machine.
With one cat on my stomach and one on each knee,
don’t expect an impartial opinion from me.
It’s clear that my thinking is slightly off-kilter.
I simply don’t have an intact kitty-filter.
I have enough stools and pillows and mats
to accommodate a few additional cats.
The problem is whether one human’s enough
to serve as a mattress  for five balls of fluff!

 

(The two calicos are hard to tell apart.  Look at the last two photos in the first collage. The one with the black dot by her eye is Frannie. The one without is Kukla.  Bet you thought they were the same cat, huh? The first cat is Annie, the second one Ollie.  They look a bit alike as well. Roo is the white cat about to fall off the chair. There will be a test over this tomorrow.)

Typical

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Typical Day

Bark of dog,
Meow of cat.
Mama-san
takes care of that
with pop of can
and clink of dishes.
After solving
all these wishes,
back to bed.
Write my blogs.
Out of bed.
Put on togs.
Make a smoothie.
Read E-mail.
Into town
for writers’ meetings.
Lots of words
and lots of greetings.
Home again
to write some more.
Pepe’s ringing
at my door.
Once a week
a heavenly rub.
Body restored,
soak in the tub.
Pat the cats,
throw balls for Morrie.
Write some more,
the same old story.
Talk to Dux
many a time
throughout the day.
Sometimes  with rhyme.
Midnight finds me
in the pool
under stars
and Morrie’s rule.
Throw the ball
for him to fetch.
Exercise, then
reach and stretch
to retrieve the ball
he throws at me.
Then loft it over
bush and tree
to lower garden
for him to find.
This is our nightly
pool grind.
Go in to bed
to write some more.
Get up to check
I’ve locked the door.
Other events
often occur.
Trips to the vet
to trim or cure.
Coffee with friends,
or dinner out.
trips to the shore,
without a doubt.
Lives grow and change
often with time.
So this is just
the paradigm.

The prompt word today is typical.

The Confessions of Catwoman

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The Confessions of Catwoman

What’s happening tomorrow?
the same thing that happens every Friday
since I was forced into retirement last year.
I’m going to go make my collections.
It will be my first day off the diet
I’ve been on for a week––
and my leathers aren’t at all as close-fitting
as they were before,
so I deserve a small reward.

That diet was low-protein, low carb and low fat,
which left nothing but grass, right?
And the problem with that was that everyone thought I was sick
and so tried to trick me into a dose of this or that.
The cod liver oil wasn’t bad,
but I’ve never developed a taste for Pepto Bismol.
A neighbor lady once sneaked some into my cream
and I gagged so hard I coughed up a hare-ball—
just the nose and whiskers, actually, but it created a sensation, nonetheless.
I was at a party and no one was yet drunk enough
to take it in their stride.

I’ve washed my hair—
Well, no surprise. I do every day.
A bit OCD on that activity,
but today I washed all of me.
Every inch.
Ears, too.

I can’t remember when I first thought
of the lucrative business
I’ve been opurrrrrrrating since my retirement;
but I do remember that tomorrow is the day
I go from door-to-door doing collections.

I usually dress in leathers,
which I look pretty good in for a mature sex-kitten.
No, not a biker chick.
I am more of a femme fatale
with a haunting and mesmerizing voice.
Everyone says sends chills down their back—
a sort of backyard Les Mis.

I’m a night person.
I sleep for most of the day
and go out every night.
I park my Catmobile
then take shortcuts: leaping over walls,
soft-toeing it along the top edges of fences.

Sometimes I crouch in the bushes,
waiting for strangers to pass.
As I do, I sharpen my fingernails—
a weapon no one can take away from me.
Anyway, what good would a gun be
for a woman with no opposable thumbs?
Hey. Don’t feel sorry for me, okay?
I’m puurrrrrfectly happy with my lot in life.
I’m puurrrrfect without them.

I am sexy, fit and nimble.
I fill out my leathers in all the right places.
I can jump to the ground from a rooftop,
land on my feet and be off before you see
any more of me than a shadow.
I am a thief by birth and inclination, and I
I pre”fur” my daily fare to be purrrrrrloined.

I can take swift revenge and kill mercilessly,
or curl up and enjoy
a long petting session,
as docile as you please.

Actually, I don’t know why I’m giving you this sales pitch.
I usually ignore people,
so when I actually notice them,
they are honored.

Anyway, I’ve gotten distracted.
I’m just going to smooth my hair a bit
and then go to bed and get rested up
for tomorrow’s collections.
What kind of brilliant feline was I to create a job for myself like this?
“Cat Woman Pest Disposal––You trap them, we collect them.”

I actually get paid for going from door to door,
collecting a course here and a course there.
No of course, no matter how hungry I am after my week’s fast,
I will not reward myself in my client’s presence.
I always wait until I get to my catmobile to have my first nibble.
After all, even a retired superheroine has to watch her image.

This poem was actually one of the first poems I wrote for my blog almost five years ago, so if you remember it, that means you are one of my first viewers ever.  This is an edited version. The prompt today is confess.

New Traditions

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New Traditions

This year, I don’t feel jolly, can’t use Christmas as a balm.
I’ll settle for well-organized, painless, mobile, calm.
Ordinary’s fine with me—time to work with plants,
to lie with cats, throw balls for dogs, extinguish cutter ants,
file foot-high stacks of papers and clean my junk drawer out—
a shocking way to celebrate. Mundane, without a doubt.

I never thought that I’d grow up where Christmas was concerned.
I’m sure my metal Christmas tree is going to feel spurned.
The fact that I’m not using it this year is rather strange,
for I wrapped it, fully decorated, last year for a change.
It wouldn’t take an hour to bring it from above
and fall back into Christmas trappings that I truly love.

But the kittens would destroy it. Albeit, they’d have fun,
but that tree would be in tatters by the time that they were done.
The wisemen and the Christ child and dozens of nacimientos*,
the wreaths and lights and figurines–all holiday mementos,
I’ll leave packed up in boxes in the closets up on shelves—
Santas stacked on reindeer, nestled against elves.

This year instead of hanging decorations on the tree, 
I’ll lie down on the sofa and let cats decorate me.

If I am the tree, Ollie is the star at the top of the tree!

*A nacimiento is a nativity scene, but in Mexico, they consist of hundreds of different figures in addition to the traditional shepherds, wisemen, angels and holy family. Go HERE to see some of the surprising figures included in a Mexican nacimiento display.

 

The prompt today was jolly.

(Goldfish) Bowl Games

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After carrying around a pill to prevent migraines for over ten years, I for some reason left it behind when I came to the U.S., so of course this morning, for the first time in ten years, I started to feel a migraine coming on. As usual, it was triggered by a bright light —this time by a split between the blinds that allowed sunlight to  reflect off the TV screen. Dizzy with the beginning of the headache, nauseous and a bit blind, I stumbled into bed, pulled a pillow over my head to block the light and lay for about an hour, willing the pain to descend from my forehead to my hands to warm them. When my hands warmed, I then became aware of icy feet and decided to see if I could warm them via migraine energy as well. I fell asleep in the act, but upon awakening six hours later, I am now noticing that my feet are warm as well—more likely due to blankets than to brainpower. Nonetheless, after the first half hour of trying to get myself regulated, this poem came into my head. I knew it would be lost if I didn’t record it and my computer was lying closed on my bed next to me, so I roused myself long enough to jot it down. Can’t control these rhymes even when bigger things are going on in my head. In this case, it started with mentally painting the image of a cat. Then the bowl appeared and he gazed into it. The goldfish came last and the poem grew out of the image. Wish I could paint or draw and I’d try to show you what I saw. Lacking this, here is the poem:

jdbphoto

(Goldfish) Bowl Games

I watch them swim in graceful curves,
and though they’d make such fine hors d’oeuvres,
I wait and wait and wait and wait.
They have not served me one to date.

 

(By the way, this technique for ridding yourself of migraine headaches has worked for me three times now over a twenty year span. Prior to this, I just suffered for up to eight hours. Once I found there was a pill available to take in the first stages, I always carried one, but as noted above, had failed to bring it with me on this trip to the states, so my old mental remedy worked once again.)

Cat Napped

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IMG_1990Kittens reacting to Morrie and Diego, jealousy barking at the closed gate that separates them from their arch rivals, the cats.

Cat Napped

My dear little creatures, I did not expect
that your lives and mine would intersect.
I didn’t know in the hush of my life
your antics would make such a mush of my life.

I spout silly names like “kitty” and “baby.”
Have I gone dotty? I must admit, “Maybe.”
I’m given to lying prone on my bed
letting the boy kitten claw at my head,

combing my hair with his kittenish claws
as his sisters cavort without mercy or pause,
biting my fingers and licking my knees.
I let them assault me wherever they please.

I find them adorable and entertaining.
Besotted with kittens, my interest is waning
in matters less feline. I neglect the dogs.
Leave them to possums and squirrels and frogs.

I feed them and throw an occasional ball,
but lately, obsessions more easily fall
into matters of cat, I’m embarrassed to say
it’s entirely possible one day I may

turn into that cat lady, brunt of those jokes
told by low-lifes in bars and other brash blokes
making fun of those who, although different, perhaps,
get pleasure enough from cats on our laps!!!

 

The prompt word today is expect.

Kukla’s Story

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IMG_0373
I, Kukla, testify that the tale you are about to hear, narrated by me and transcribed by my mom, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me, tuna.

(But first, a few words from Judy.) After reading an account of Murdo Girl’s trip to my old stomping grounds in South Dakota narrated by one of her dogs, I harangued her to let her cat narrate a tale as well. Voicing some objections to this, being that her cat can be a contrary soul, she finally assented and her cat told an interesting story showing none of that contrary nature suggested by her mom, who is prone to exaggeration, I must say. Since then, she has been similarly haranguing me to allow one of my kittens to tell a tale. So, fresh from a nap, I went in and grabbed Kukla from the pile and let her narrate to me this true story of what happened the night of my film night. I will stay out of it except to warn you against inviting even writing friends over to see the film about Emily Dickinson entitled “A Quiet Passion.”  Much as I like her poetry, this film was a depressing YAWN!!! Kukla’s tale, I hope, has more energy. Okay, here it is, straight from the cat’s maw:

Kukla’s Story

As I was wrestling with another,
our two-footed human mother
came to take my brother outside
to the sala where her friends reside
to sit there, bored and subtly snoring
as they watched a film as boring
to humans as it was to cats.
Edgy and restless, I guess that’s
why he jumped down from her chair
and scooted himself out of there.

The next act of the status quo
occurred as they prepared to go.
She thought she’d put him back inside
the guest bedroom where we reside
and certainly this may be so.
We were all sleeping, so didn’t know.
But shortly after their departing
(with much stopping and restarting)
after she had shut the gate
and come inside to cogitate
on the film “A Quiet Passion,”
regretting it, as was her fashion,
there came a huge great caterwauling––
yowling, quieting, rising, falling––
in the front yard. Some creature bitten?
Could it be an escaped kitten?

We heard her open wide the door
and give a certain panicked roar
as was her wont—a silly ditty
comprised of “Kitty, kitty, kitty?”
And what she later then related,
as soon as her query abated,
a cat like us, but bigger, tore
out from the shadows and past the door.

It must have been our feline mother
for why would it have been another?
Who abandoned us here months ago
and went where errant mom cats go
once that they have vamanoosed
from the kittens they’ve produced.
She streaked across to disappear
into the shadows that were near,
two-legged mother most surprised
for she had always just surmised
our mother was the big white cat
who had appeared months before that
fine day when we climbed up her wall––
so small to climb a vine that tall.

But this cat I have heard her say––
the one that came just yesterday––
Looked exactly like we four
as she streaked quickly by the door.
And when two-legged mother started
to close the door, one more full-hearted
yowling pealed out from the left.
It was Ollie, lost and bereft.
Somehow he’d made his way outside
and chosen just to cower and hide
until four-footed mother appeared
to warn that other mother who’s reared
us all from little lumps of fur––
who nourishes and makes us purr.

Could it be that that first mother of all––
who nursed us all when we were small––
has been watching as we grew?
Watching all we say and do?
Being sure the one she chose
deals with all our needs and woes?

Two-footed mother will never know
that it is true that it is so.
We have two mothers watching us––
enjoying all our leaps and fuss.
And in the absence of a padre,
they have conspired to co-madre.

IMG_0387I, Ollie, testify as to the veracity of Kukla’s relation of this tale. It was a harrowing night out there in the wilds. I was too agitated to tell the tale myself.

IMG_0391 (1)
Writing is exhausting so I had a little nap as mom polished the tale, dotting all the i’s, closing all the parentheses, spellchecking the caterwauls.

For Annie

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e’s Annie headphones

Annie as a kitten


Everyday Kitty

Casts a fine shadow. Likes to curl up.
Has to put up with that scrawny new pup.
At her most regal when perched up on leather,
she suns on the wall in the sunniest weather.

Not very scary like Halloween cats.
Doesn’t quite go with pumpkins and bats.
But everyday kitty has her own way,
and she’s a great kitty for just every day.

 

I wrote the above poem some time ago.  I think I probably published it on my blog, but I don’t remember and I must say I’m too tired to check.  Morrie has a skin infection, the kittens are darling but take up  a surprising amount of time and now I have another patient to care for.  After being away for weeks, everyday kitty has reinserted herself into my life.  Here is the present-day story of Annie, the everyday kitty of the poem.

Poor Annie has had a hard time of it since the four kittens moved in. First of all, they drove her away from her morning meal on the wall.  Then they usurped the attention and affection of her handmaiden of 15 years. They moved into the house that admittedly she’d had no desire to enter since the third dog entered the home that she herself had reigned in for a short while after Lulu, the headcat, had moved out after the second dog moved in.  It had been a protest of sorts that they thought their handmaiden would pay attention to, but no.  She had merely divided the lawn in two, designating the cats to the front and dogs to the back, but this wasn’t sufficient.  They wanted those dogs GONE! The final result was that Lulu had moved in with the neighbors and she, Annie, had refused to venture any further onto the property than the front wall by the garage, demanding that her handmaiden deliver her meals twice a day.  This she did, but an extended hand met with a rebuff.  Annie would take her votive offerings, but no more. She was permanently miffed in only the way a queenly cat can be miffed.  The world would suffer from now on. She was not amused.

Imagine her chagrin when the new cat in the neighborhood had first deigned to scarf down her leavings and then to challenge her for firsties.  Her handmaiden had shooed the cat away, but she knew she had now and then put out fresh food for that cat at midnight when she though Annie was asleep in the field across the street.  Then.  Those kittens!  She had tried to show the needed amount of chagrin by not coming home for meals for a few days, but then when she decided to stay her fast, when she did come home, she found her wall guarded by THAT CAT!  A terrific fight ensued and sorely wounded, she had dragged herself into the walled lot across the street where she lay for two weeks, living off the reserves of rich cat foot she had been served for years.  She had caught a few small rodents as well as insects, but barely enough to keep her cat soul in her body.  Her eyes swelled up, infected from the scratches of the demon cat.  Her right hip sored her and she could barely walk at the end, dragging the right front paw which turned under, limp and unhelpful.  

How she got herself up on top of the wall she can’t remember.  It was a triumph of will, but once there, she lay entangled in the dense bougainvillea vines, too tired to struggle, unable to go frontwards or backwards.  She barely had the strength to meow when she heard the engine of the car. But her handmaiden heard her.  She, not being as agile as she had been 16 years ago when she had crawled under the car on the streets of Ajijic to rescue Annie, had been unable to hoist herself up onto the high wall, even with the aid of a small ladder.  She had clipped away at the sharp-needled bougainvillea, but to no avail.  It was such a dense tangle that she made little headway, even on the outer vines, and she could not reach far enough in to free any of the vines Annie was tangled within.

When she heard the car out in the street outside the wall, her handmaiden had immediately opened the garage door and run outside for help.  With the aid of the stranger in the car, who had climbed up onto the wall and started clipping away from one side while the handmaiden stood outside the wall clipping away at the other, they finally succeeded in moving her away from the stranger and into the arms of her human, who paid Annie’s savior with a new bottle of very good Tequila.  He was delighted, Annie was saved, and thus began a few days of trying to save her poor emaciated self.  

Annie speaks: Trips to the vet for an exam and two shots, three kinds of meds to be administered daily, bi-daily and tri-daily, setting up an emergency room in the only bathroom left in the house, the other having been usurped by the kittens, then the hours of coaxing me to eat even a small amount of food.  She tried fish oil capsules broken open and dribbled over the food, the rich beefy aroma of the vitamins spread on her finger.  I licked them off and then bit her, drawing blood.  When cats suffer, everyone suffers!  Now, after the second day, my formerly horribly swollen and infected eyes seem back to normal. I am deigning to eat small spoons full of a very expensive special cat food.  They must be mixed with another special brand of wet kitten food, dribbled with fish oil and soaked in the beefy vitamin liquid.  Then, offered in small bits by my handmaiden’s hand.  Then much kissing and scratching and petting and coddling must occur, me wrapped in a soft towel on her lap. Then I might deign to take another bite. Such it is that everyday kitties attain the rank of royalty––just as it should always have been.

Click on first photo to enlarge all and see captions.

Annie and Lulu as kittens
Annie getting her rubs.
Annie emerging from her lair.
Annie’s meds.
Annie’s efficiency apartment/intensive care unit.

 

 

Bearcat—NaPoWriMo 2016, April 20

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When my new husband and I moved from L.A. to the redwoods of northern California, a feral cat appeared from the forest and after a week or so of hide-and-go-seek games, deigned to move in with us.  A month or so later, she had three kittens—like their mother, all grey Burmese with chartreuse eyes, but each with a differently-shaped tail.  The mother’s was curved at the end with a dip to the right. One of the female kittens had a similar dip, but to the left.  The other female had a zigzag tale. The sole male, Bearcat, was the only one with a perfect tale—unbent, long and expressive.  He was also the biggest,  the most talkative and the only one to survive for fifteen years—long enough to move with me to Mexico.

Bearcat
1987-2002
R.I.P.

back-lofter
tail-wafter
gray-bearer
drape-tearer
ball-loser
lap-chooser
bunny-slayer
shoelace-player
sofa-climber
sleep-mimer
shadow-springer
dragonfly-bringer
lizard de-tailer
spider-nailer
basement-searcher
window-ledge percher
tree-dweller
mouse-smeller
dog-chaser
bug-caser
door crack-peeper
sunbeam-sleeper
woods-walker
squirrel-stalker
rail-balancer
prey-glancer
shadow-catcher
love-hatcher
body-spinner
heart-winner

NaPoWriMo prompt: Kennings were riddle-like metaphors use in Norse Sagas. Basically, they are ways of calling something not by its actual name, but by a sort of clever, off-kilter description — for example, the sea would be called the “whale road.” Today, I challenge you to think of a single thing or person (a house, your grandmother, etc), and then write a poem that consists of kenning-like descriptions of that thing or person.

Here is an earlier poem written to this same prompt:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/04/13/napowrimo-day-13-wish-wagon/

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-3/——