by 
The sweetness of dogs (fifteen)
What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. Full tonight.
So we go
and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit,
I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up into
my face. As though I were
his perfect moon.”
― Swan: Poems and Prose Poems [Recommended]
So many funny, sweet and poignant poems, well-considered and finally wrought, an homage to our critter friends in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, Practical Cat on Cinco de Mayo, March 6, 2019.
Thanks to Paul Brookes, Irma Do, Irene Emanuel, Jen Goldie, Mike Stone, and Anjum Wasim Dar for this touching collection. Special thanks also to Irma, Jen, and Anujum Ji for sharing their delightful illustrations. Grab a tissue and enjoy another stellar collection from our intrepid reader-poets … and do join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to participate.
Apologies for the lateness of this post. Big tech issues. Sigh!
The Gift
A small dark shape on kitchen tile
stared over by our cat,
Move closer. it is a sparrow bairn,
whose chest balloons out as my sigh releases.
Scooped up, as I take it out to the garden.
It stands on the plastic lip.
Over the fence our neighbour stands in hunched
dark tears “My mam won’t be coming out of hospital”
My breath caught.
The sparrow flies away.
From Paul’s second forthcoming pamphlet to be published in England probably later this year
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Coincidence
Every morning our tabby
sits beside the grave
beside the wall
of her black predecessor
Our lass and I joke
she is speaking
to her ‘grandma’
My Nana hates cats
who leave “messages”
in her garden
Don’t know how
people can live
with cat hair…
disgusting how people
let them walk
on surfaces.
She never visits us.
Cat and Nana never meet.
Their senses fail
at the same time.
Eyes, ears, mouth.
Something tells me
not long after our cat
goes Nana will too.
Arrivee from work
our cat rigor mortis stiff
across her armchair.
Three days later
I get a phone call
Nana has fallen.
I sit beside her
hospital bedside.
Arrive home to find
a new tabby cat
who asks me
to stroke her
in the way our
black cat did.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
My rough
tongue licks my sharp claws
as i see warm flesh canter up hill.
Haunches heavy with meat,
back heavy with rider.
I leap at the horses backside
claws gain purchase.
Rider crashes, hot meal gallops away.
I snarl at the dismounted man.
Human can be good meat.
He challenges me with metal.
My claws taste his blood,
again and again. He rushes
toward a spired house of stone.
Tries the locked door.
I am in the porch with him.
He a trapped animal like me.
We press on each other.
Neither tamed, die together.
Based on the local legend of “The Cat And Man”
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
I Found Kittens In Our Settee
I had to trash
vintage settee
we’d just got
of off that thief Mavis.
We’d lost our fat cat.
Couldn’t find her for love nor…
Settee were making noises.
Used kitchen knife.
Found cat and new kittens
sat on £350.
Mavis hadn’t stolen it
after all. I’ll buy her some cheap wine.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Barrage
You hear a blackbird trill,
stroked by a gentle wisp.
You inhale seeds and grass
and suddenly know why
your Grandad spent time
out of the house in the garden
away from the barrage,
snipes and aggro of his wife.
And as you weed the bricked path
to the front door your black cat complains
to be let in and you quietly advise
that he has a perfectly serviceable
cat flap at the back, until
your wife opens the front door
and let’s him in and scowls at you
as she shuts it.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
As Abandoned
black kitten lobbed out of joyrider’s car window
top of our street, always had bare patch
on her upper thigh, could not get enough
strokes, hugs, Daddy’s girl.
in her moving owner’s back garden for months,
new owner could not keep her
due to his chickens and dog, always her small
paws catch your clothes as you pass.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
If Only My Dead Dears
deliberately hid away
like our new kitten who disappears
so we cannot hear her bell,
her purrs.
We open cupboards, look under,
into, around
and sigh they’ve gone for good
this time
then smile.
And it is as if she says
he, he, couldn’t find me.
No matter how hard we look
we only find the dead in our heads.
And sometimes smile
as we remember them in a place
we had not thought to find them
for some time.
© 2019, Paul Brookes (Wombwell Rainbow / Inspiration. History. Imagination.)
Prolific Yorkshire Poet, Paul Brookes
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jamie Dedes
More poems by Paul at Michael Dickel’s Meta/ Phore(e) /Play
Sunning the Queen – a Nonet
Plump
Meow
Lick lick purrrr
Rumble grumble
Lazy eyes open
Head languidly turning
Anything interesting?
Oh no – just you – scratch my head now
The sun makes me sleepy. Time to eat?
This nonet was written for Jamie’s Wednesday Writing Prompt to write a poem about an animal companion. The original title for this poem was “Fat Cat in the Sun”, for indeed, Kassidy was a chubby wubby kitty cat, but she was also ruler of our home. My parents would do anything for Kassidy – come home early to feed her, go to a different grocery store to buy her special food, made sure she had several special beds to lie around the house. In return, she always greeted you at the door so you could scratch her head the minute you came in before you even got a chance to put down your keys. Kassidy died about 3 years ago yet she always will hold a place in our hearts.
© 2019, photo and words, Irma Do (I Do Run – And I do a few other things)
THE JUDGE
My file was open on my desk,
I left it there a while;
I did not know a judge was close
and watching with a smile.
I started work on something new,
my file was out of sight;
the noise I heard alerted me,
I turned and got a fright.
The judge was sitting near my file,
his back was hunched and tense;
he threw-up on my poetry,
with careful negligence.
My poems must have turned his lunch,
he really was in pain;
that blasted cat disliked my work
and vomited again.
It seems my poetry is deficient,
I’ll watch TV instead;
but if that cat sits on my lap,
I’ll smack his furry head.
© 2019, Irene Emanuel
This morning death was on
my doorstep, no one died
no one particularly,
Someone’s cat, someone’s
Dog, a birdie possibly,
Sadness overwhelmed me
So, I had my morning tea
As all those old memories
Flooded over me, my heart
began to ache and the new
days sun washed over me.
With pleasant memories.
I still can’t draw a cat.
© 2019, poem and drawing, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)
On the day of……….
as we prepared for….
as I prepared for.
You looked at me inquisitivly
I had no answer….
for you this time.
what are
the tears for?
Where are
we going?
So many questions
Keep going
I took the day
so we
could
spend
time
together……………….
One
……….
Last
……….
Moment
………….
in
time………..
together.
In loving memory of Simon. Devoted, loving, steadfast, trusting and true. I’ll never forget you. ❤😔
© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional
This is a story as told by me, that no fat
or otherwise cool Cat could deny. The
Day the Cat Stood Still was a catastrophe,
she made a cat’s paw of me, decidedly
deciding I’d not cat’ch on to her curiosity,
Where could the cat be, a cat’ch phrase
we all know constantly. She was playing cat
and mouse with me, no caterwauling, no
hell Cat catapulting, no cat nabbing at hand,
I calmly considered, there’s more than one way
to skin a cat, we’ll see which way the cat jumps.
And So, I with ears perked
roamed the room stealthily, when suddenly
I hear a meow, and there she was Kitty
cornered in a drawer, looking like the cat
that got the cream, cool cat on my cat pajamas,
kitty whiskers teasing me.
Cat got your tongue?
© 2019, Jen E. Goldie (Starlight and Moon Beams, And the Occasional Cat)
As always dedicated to my dearly departed friends of the four legged feline kind. 💗💕
.little dog gone.
oh you were so very small
hash tag
not a proper dog
was said.
oh you were good company
hash tag
not like a human
was said.
oh boy on a good day how you
would run.
hash tag.
more like scampering
was said and overheard.
little dog gone.
© 2019, Sonja Benskin Mesher
- sonja-benskin-mesher.net
- sonja-benskin-mesher.net
- Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings (This is her Facebook page, so you can connect with her there as well as view photographs of her colorful paintings.)
- Sonja on Twitter
- sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk
- Sonja’s daily blog (WordPress) is HERE.
West Wind
Raanana, August 3, 2013
Her spirit rushes over the waving grasses
And the jittery tree leaves
Like the West Wind
Racing to fetch the stick
I’ve thrown so high and far
But the stick lies still
Where it has fallen.
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
Tears and Toys
Raanana, January 31, 2013
A poem is sometimes like a joke
Except instead of being funny
It’s so sad your heart leaps out of your chest
And you look around to see whether anyone else saw that
But they never do.
I once read a poem about my dead dog Chewy
How I buried her with my tears and her toys
Only I didn’t say her name or that she was a dog.
Some people came up to me afterward, a man and a woman,
And she told me how they appreciated my poem
Because they had buried their daughter too
With their tears and her toys.
Then I told them the punch-line
That my poem was about my dog Chewy
(I loved her so)
Because honesty’s the best policy.
The woman winced once, I think,
And then a curtain came down
Hiding their faces from me.
Now and then I hear laughter
And I look around
But don’t see any joke being told.
He seems to slap his knees at our sorrows.
Sometimes I get all mixed up about
Who’s God
And who’s the poet
And who’s burying their dead love
With their tears and her toys.
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
Worry
Raanana, June 21, 2013
What if they don’t come home?
I’ve been standing on the couch
I don’t know how long
Looking out the window …
What if they don’t come home?
Their cars aren’t there,
The black one or the brown one,
What if they don’t …?
It’s quiet and I’m so lonely –
What if …?
Nobody will give me water
And nobody will give me food
And nobody will love me
And nobody will come.
Don’t they know what could happen
When they say goodbye to me?
What if they don’t come home?
I’ll lie down to sleep
I don’t know how long.
At least I won’t think about
What if they don’t come home,
But I can’t sleep because
What if they don’t come home?
Don’t they know what I think?
Don’t they care?
If they only knew
How impossible it is to think like this
They’d never leave me.
What if they don’t come home?
Please come back … now.
What if they don’t come home?
© 2013, Mike Stone (Uncollected Works, Yes Another Book of Poetry and Stories)
The Service Revolver
Raanana, May 22, 2009
Sixty-six pounds of snarling anger
In the only path to safety
For six pounds of cold fear.
A chain squeezes suddenly around the honey-colored throat
And the anger moves on,
At first reluctantly, and then
Loping along at a goodly pace
Wet nostrils flared and quivering,
Ready to sift and scoop up
Anything of taste or interest
Along the dark and lamp-lit way.
Walking my dog Daisy
Whose name belies her vigor and strength
Barely controlled by a pact initialed
But never formally ratified,
She leads me through the valley of my loneliness
Which I measure in the scrape and echo
Of footsteps having no place to go.
Walking under an archway of sparse leaved bracken
And thick limbs of eucalyptus
Thoughts swarm around us
In no particular rhyme or meter,
Like the personal black hole
Pulling me towards an eventual horizon
In gossamer strands of infinity,
And another: at what point in our lives
Does it become reasonable
To contemplate suicide,
To feel the coolness and weight of one’s service revolver
Against the weight of continuing to be?
(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)
Chewy
Raanana, February 4, 2007
I have a riddle for you:
‘When is a house empty, even though it’s full of people?’
She had more names than God Himself.
We should have called her Uhuru—
Freedom was the one thing she loved more than us
And finally she’s escaped the soft clutches of our love.
In our eagerness and innocence
We brought her home too soon
To be weaned from her mother,
A frightened little thing
No bigger than my fist.
She grew to love us though,
As fiercely as we loved her.
Some people were scared of her
But we’d give anything
For her to warm herself against us.
Last night her little heart burst its bounds
And she escaped her life
Running free at last through open fields
Photographed by death.
This morning when we buried her,
It rained cats and dogs.
(c) 2009, Mike Stone (The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone)
Mike Stone’s Amazon Page is HERE.
Dreaming Guard
More grey than white she was,
sensuously stirring,
if otherwise
sleeping or pretending
to sleep,
what attracted her, to peep
through the glass
then back down and pass
to the side to laze as if
in a drunken daze
daily visit , a long quiet look
then off to the nook,
satisfied with one ,
deep open eyed glance,
set her in the love trance,
no desire to roll or prance,
contentment replete, in form n fur,
silent breath, silent purr,
guarding the door, on barren floor,
profound faith, defying death_
my love have seen , no desire for more
to heaven I’ve been.
now oblivious of dogfights,rat races
she sleeps or pretends to sleep
snuggled cozily on the metallic bonnet
musing warmly on composing a sonnet
perhaps dreaming of a beloved felidae.
© 2019, poem (English and Urdu, below) and Illustrations, Anjum Wasim Dar (Poetic Oceans)
بلی کے امور
خوابوں میں ڈوبی یا سویؑ ھویؑ ،
سفیدی مایل ،رنگ ھلکے کی زیادہ وہ لگتی تھی ،
جھوٹ موٹ دکھاوے کے لیؑے سویؑ ھویؑ بلی رانی
کس کی کشش کھینچ لایؑ اسے کھڑکی تلے
نظر بھر کے دیکھا ، مسکرایؑ نشے میں ڈوبی ھویؑ
وہ روز روز آنا دوڑتے ھوےؑ آنا، اک نظر کی تسلی
وہ دوستی نبھایؑ، سب پا لیا تو کرنے آرام وہ لیٹی
انوکھا پیار انوکھا کھیل قدرت کا میل کویؑ میاوؑن نہیں
محبت میں بھیگی خر خراتی ھویؑ ، ھے چوکیدار بنی
پرواہ نہیں موت کی نہ چوھوں کی چاہت و خواھش
دنیا کرے جنگ یہ خوابوں میں کھویؑ سوچے اپنی شاعری
“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL” Anjum Wasim Dar
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 
I am amazed by all the gradations of emotions our furry friends can make us feel – Heartwarming to heart breaking…great prompt Jamie!
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Brilliant Jamie on so many levels. Thank you everyone for writing such wonderful pieces in honour or “Angst” for their “Critter-Friends”. Thank you once again Jamie, for putting together such a sometimes funny yet sometimes heart wrenching writing prompt. 🌼🌹💕
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