Poetry - Cat Tales - July/August 2026
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Over the last few months, my cats have been wandering into my writing on Bluesky. I have gathered the stories and fragments together here in the order they appeared. |
My cat on the front porch
yawns, stands up on two legs
and declares that my language and wars and history
are all utterly, utterly meaningless.
Becomes cat again
and falls asleep.
I stare into my oolong, astounded,
and listen to the disjointed
sounds of the evening resume:
sounds of the evening resume:
a distant car... gulls...
***
Scattered blossom
my handful of worlds.
Cat unimpressed.
***
***
Whilst I
cannot
bring myself
to meditate,
or even simply
to stillness —
my cat
opens an eye.
Closes it.
***
Cat sleeps under a tree
and the dance of swifts.
She wakes, opens an eye – there
are the swifts, still dancing.
My dreams always come true,
cat murmurs to herself.
Content with this revelation
she falls back asleep, thinking:
somewhere a cat must be dreaming
of a cat sleeping beneath a tree.
***
When Marx wrote about the idiocy of rural life, I assume he meant my cat.
***
My other cat – the one
who spends her days on the tin roof
of the garage and says nothing –
is dreaming of the United Nations
as they gather to decide the best way
to help all the heartbroken humans.
A German stands to say:
“Let us, still inspired by Das Kapital,
share not just our wealth,
but our compassion.”
***
I am in bed when my cat appears suddenly from behind the wardrobe door and comes to sit on my chest.
"I have given up writing poetry," she yawns. "Why write all these poems about mice –" she licks her paw and, accidentally, my nipple, which tickles "– when I can simply go outside and catch some?"
She purrs, quite malevolently, for a full five minutes, and then without warning digs her claws into my skin. I'm used to this sort of treatment by now.
"Perhaps you could write a poem about me?" I suggest.
The tail begins to whip and I get the feeling the subject will never be raised again.
I reach very slowly for my notebook and pen so as not to scare her.
Her head snaps round to look at my hand and I feel her go suddenly still.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice taking on an accusatory shade disguised, at least in texture, as a meow.
"Nothing," I lie.
***
My cat’s head appears around the drainpipe –
a mouse between her jaws, dead or playing dead.
She trots up the steps and onto the porch. She sits.
“Morality,” she says, “is a construct, stupid!”
She kills the mouse.
Then, miraculously, she brings it back to life.
***
I'm sitting out late when my cat – the one who I suspect can read and that I always leave the newspaper out for – unexpectedly appears on my lap.
"I think," she says, "we ought to gather the world's leaders and make them sit together under the stars."
Then she leaps away, chasing other dreams.
***
My other cat – my real cat, not the one I write stories about – had to come stay inside the house a while; she has a gluten allergy and had been eating someone else's cat food. Silly thing. Anyway, three days into her stay she woke me up in the middle of the night to say she had remembered something about Goethe, but forgotten, and apologised. I let her back out.
***
I'm reading by the fire when my cat appears. As the nights grow colder, she begins to slip inside whenever she gets the chance. So, she settles down beside me, looks at me with her steady gaze for just a moment, yawns, and, before shutting her eyes, exclaims: "Bukowski was utterly vile." She's right.
