Cat People by Bruce Boston

Cat People
by Bruce Boston

If cat people
were the world
we would embrace
the sharp and furry.

We would slink
along the street
and dash across it.

If cat people
were the world
we would build walls
against the sea.

We would sleep
by day and wander
the haunts and heights
of our cities by night.

We would have flesh
delivered living
to the arena
of our choice.

We would delight
in our feasting
and celebrate
the deathful grace
in our play.

If cat people
were the world,
oh how we would purr!

Cat People by Theresa C. Newbill

Cat People
by Theresa C. Newbill

Lucius licks the spatula that once made pancakes,
leftover grease from bacon frying in a pan,
dum-di-dum, his head tilts as music from the
morning songsters awaken with the November sun.

Last night the moon was thin, sharp crescent,
his green eyes hypnotically entranced by dark
clouds drifting across it, blotting his calico fur
with makeshift stars into prominence.

Rowan trees with gnarled bark, huge with spreading
roots and limbs, held knowledge of the dead.
Even the nonchalant nuance of Luicus’s facial
expression honored those who passed before,

knowing that one-day he too shall become dust,
only to be reborn once again. Spit and polish,
he kept everything crisp and neat, for Samhain
fell over his usual haunts registering

each rise and fall of his breath among invisible
vapors that stretched out to touch him; the nutty
stuff of dreams that leaves you frozen without
the mercy of explanation.

“How do you know when you’ve loved someone
enough, Lucius?”

He heard her voice before he saw her, the raven-haired
cloaked and hooded figure walking the old shale
road that wound into a labyrinth between the messes
of greens rising up high from the watchtowers of the
East.

A pinch of salt to guide her way, the violet scent of her cologne,
those soft hands that tickled his neck with the sleepy, whispery
feel of her skin before she shed physical form into the cat
person she really was, leaving a surplus

of bracelets, stockings, and hooded cloak in her wake,
burning her human form barefoot across damp earth.
Lucius saw the reflection of them both in the flames,
their watery images dancing, stirring the fire,

that cackled with red blue sparks into the air. Deliberately,
she cozied up to him as they lodged in the field of woods
where he shivered as she held him more tightly. He saw the
slackness of her jaw, the blackness around her yellow eyes,

greedy for his substance. She once condemned him to death,
this Succubus that turned him into her familiar after stealing
his soul, condemned to never see the sunlight across his
own face ever again.

“Betrayal has a price, Lucius.” They were young and just then
falling in love before he found out who she really was before
he found out who he really was. Witches have no choice about
being witches, they just are,

and breed within their clans. They looked at one another with
night-seeing eyes and inhuman powers before the dawn came
reverting them back to two-legged creatures that made
breakfast in the morning and worked for a living,

existing in secret among you and taking on many forms,
possessing supernatural powers and thousands of years
of traditions and shared history. In the meadow, by the
graveyard, a raised sarcophagus holds a cold,

lovely statue of centuries old Lucius, timeless, suspended.
He still grieves for his human wife, the one he betrayed with
her, damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, but his mistress,
with violet cologne that smelled like rain,

stained from years of weather, dirt, hissed at his remembrance.
And so two once warring clans become one between the fine
threads of time, accepting their destiny; and the scent of her
violet cologne, it had all been worth it, everyday he spent,

in her prison.

The Killer by Nathan Tyree

The Killer

by Nathan Tyree


The cat twisted itself around in a corkscrew configuration as
it closed the distance from the branch to the ground.
It seemed to have too much weight for its size;
yet it exhibited a level of grace that Robert found difficult to believe
or understand. He watched as it descended into a low crouch against the earth.
As soon as it landed, the cat looked ready to pounce, ready to strike against any adversary. This, Robert thought, is a real predator.
Not like those bogus tough guys always strutting around with too much muscle,
and too little brain. No, the cat was nothing like them.
The cat was a killer right down to the bone. Pity any poor rodent or reptile
that came into its view. The cat, Robert was certain, had no worries
and no fear. Only hunger.

Grimalkin by James Dye

Grimalkin

by James Dye

Grimalkin, my unpretentious, self-centered cat,
floats with buoyant agility as if lithe and nimble
as a sylphlike effervescent Kleenex falling.

I found him in the corrupt back-alley of self-serving
where I acquired for a small amount of money
a hollow cat loitering in the emptiness of space
in the paltry shallows of a vain inconsiderable life
commonplace among worthless meaningless moments.

First day, Grimalkin stole my shoestrings, no biggie.
Second day, Grimalkin ate my shrimp, not important.
Third day, Grimalkin left me only potatoes, small potatoes.
Fourth day, Grimalkin reined me in and tethered my arms.
Fifth day, I stayed home repressed, controlled, and governed.
Sixth day, Grimalkin grew to the size of a horse and wings.
Seventh day, Grimalkin pulled God on the back of a Chariot.

Grimalkin grew old and began to shrink after a while.
He’s small enough to fit inside my pocket like a shadow.
He’s vanishing, atomically shrinking, every day
Until his whispers become a low distant muffle
undetectable and indistinguishable from other microscopic,
invisible shadows, indiscernible from other ephemeral cats,
and Grimalkin’s momentary rule is insignificant to historians.

Roxy by Matthew Favreau

She looks at me
Her mellow amber eyes tinged with luminescent green
She listens as I speak to her
Intent, focused, understanding every word, every fluctuation
As no human ever could

The glimmer of her silver fur
As she bathes luxuriously in the warmth of the sun
The delicate purple pads tucked beneath her chest
She stretches, rises, sits, each motion, each move perfect in its timing, its gait
Its beauty

She is the Queen of the house and no one dares dispute it
The Sheba of every armchair, every pillow, every rug worthy enough of her
She knows all this
That she is worth a thousand times the finest pearls
And yet she chooses to lie beside me

Black Cats by Patricia La Barbera

Black Cats
by Patricia La Barbera


Don't ever think it's a mistake
that when we cross your path, you quake.

You see, we've quite a history
and cultivated mystery.

We think that it's quite suitable
for us to be inscrutable.

We also know that our eyes glow
much more than say, a calico.

But it would not be adventitious
if people thought that we were vicious,

so we have learned to hide our claws
successfully in velvet paws.

Mixed-Medium by Leila A. Fortier

Click on the picture to enlarge.




Leila A. Fortier is a writer, artist, poet, and photographer currently residing on the remote island of Okinawa Japan. Her poetry is known to be a unique hybrid form in which her words are specially crafted into abstract visual designs, often accompanied by her own multi-medium forms of art, photography, and spoken performance. Much of her work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, German, Hindi and Japanese in a rapidly growing project to raise global unity and understanding through the cultural diversity of poetry and literature.

Her work in all its mediums has been published in a vast array of literary magazines, journals, and reviews both in print and online. She has appeared in several books, anthologies, and freelance publications. In 2007, she initiated the anthology A World of Love: Voices for Carmen as a benefit against domestic violence and in 2010 composed a photo book entitled Pappankalan, India: Through the Eyes of Children to benefit the education of impoverished Indian children. She is also the author of Metanoia's Revelation through iUniverse. A complete listing of her published works can be found here.

Nikki

By Michael Lee Johnson


Watching doves
peck away,
all day long at
a full bowl
of mixed seeds,
out on the balcony-
the cat curls
up on the sofa,
after a meager
meal of house flies-
and dreams of
sparrows with
wide soaring
wings.

-2007-




Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is heavy influenced by: Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, entitled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available here. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom can be found here. He also has 2 previous chapbooks available here.

Michael has been published in over 22 countries. He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site.

Poems by RD Hartwell

Cat Pelts

Cat pelts are draped across the furniture.
Do not become entangled in their lives,
For their claws will ensnare your soul,
Placing you under their dominion.

Dominated by cats, I shift yet again,
Contouring myself to their lives.
They give back more than they take,
Not something easily said of kin.

Something shifts, animating their fur.
Sleek bodies stretch in seesaw rhythm.
Silently, I watch their undulating lumber,
Stalking, readying to attack the sunbeam.



Company Cat

He is the company cat.
No, not the mouser in the warehouse.
No, not the doorstop in the front hallway.
No, not the backyard birder protecting fruit trees.

He keeps me company on the table as I write,
Loose hairs blowing across the papered plateau;
One paw lain protectively across my open page,
Poised to help my pen if I slow down or pause.

He is my abbreviated editor, the company cat.



Gray Cat

I lose my cat in the morning,
Gray cat melting in a gray dawn,
Freedom slinking over the lawn,
Lurking in the foreign shadows;
Padded paws tingling with dew,
Ears pricked to nuanced sounds,
Unnaturally alive, outside at dawn.



Postal Cat

I saw the postal cat today, across the sill, lounging in a chair.
He didn’t really greet me,
Or even deign to meet me,
Nor did I feel acknowledgment that I was even there.

I had to step around him, while his predatory glare
Kept me in his orange-eyed focus, as if to say ‘I dare
You to disturb me, and if you think to do so, I’ll share
My bureaucratic fangs with you in a most defiant stare.’

When I finally bought my stamps, and turned, I spied my foe.
That postal cat was stalking me,
It suddenly occurred to me,
For interrupting his naptime, he was intimidating me to go.


Reshelved

The stately Cheshire cat parades and weaves herself
Upon the ledge, in and out, among the many books,
Her gaze intent, alert for any movement on the shelf.
She soon tires and searches for a bed within the nooks.

Much like my cat, I’m searching through the books
Looking to parade my knowledge before the young,
But as the lunch bell sounds, they enter with those looks.
I know they’ll soon tire, curl up, and then be done.

Royal Cats by Suzan L. Wiener

Royal Cats
by Suzan L. Wiener

Cats are like snowflakes
Coming in different sizes.
Each one unique
With many surprises.

Cats are finicky;
Cats are supreme.
If they were royalty,
They'd be kings and queens.

Cats are our friends,
And oh, so dear.
Taking away strife -
Drying our tears.

Cats are the hope
Of a bright tomorrow.
Bringing giggles
Without the sorrow.

Consolations of Bast by Mary A. Turzillo

Consolations of Bast
by
Mary A. Turzillo


She shivers:
alone in her huge crib,
longing for sleep if she knew what it was.
They
have left her forever.
She wails and the night grinds on,
until the cat comes,
purrs her to sleep.

Heavy
in her arms is
the cat,
perhaps a different cat.
Tears
fall on its indifferent head.
She sobs:
stone-hearted boy!
It purrs.
The hum makes her lose
the thread of her grief

Her baby screams
with fever;
and so many bills due.
She lies waiting for
dawn and catastrophe.
Please, please,
just let me sleep. So
the cat kneads her chest
and she sinks
into revery.

The dying
feel warmth,
heavy as a baby, on their chests.
Someone
has left open
the door to the
Home
and the cat,
a different cat surely,
holds down
the old woman's sorrow
its rasp
licking away
only bad memories.

And in the open coffin,
the mortician's cat
keeps the dead company,
half asleep,
purring:
she does not
go alone.

Blood Brothers by Lynda Nash

Blood Brothers
by Lynda Nash

The cats are in the garden.
Playing,
They jump at flowers,
Roll in dirt.

One kills a bird.
In turns they bite,
The taste of blood makes them frenzied.
Faces ecstatic
They gambol in the grass like spring lambs.

The road claimed Elwood.
(Grass in the garden was not enough.)
Creeping illness took Jake; his kidneys failed.

Among the flowers,
Trapped by the dirt.
As free as birds.
Jake and Elwood, the cats,
Are in the garden.

Ode to a Nameless Cat by Celestine Trinidad

Ode to a Nameless Cat
by Celestine Trinidad

We thought it best not to give him a name,
So little,
So vulnerable.
Death could easily take him away,
Invisible to a distracted driver,
Victim to a fatal disease.
We thought it best not to love him,
not yet.
Not when we lost so many little ones before.

But it was inevitable.
He was never afraid,
not of us.
He would lick our calloused hands,
Snuggle against our bone-weary feet,
Rest his little head on our laps,
a silent solace.

We loved him,
Yet still we did not name him.

But it was inevitable.
One day, death, with its icy hands,
Wrenched him away from our warmth
into its frozen embrace.
And we have no name to remember him by.

Yet we mourn for the little orange kitten
we never thought to name,
Yet still
loved.


Celestine Trinidad is an intern of Medicine from the Philippines, but she still tries to read and write as much as she can in her (now unfortunately very little) free time. Much to her surprise, she won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature for her short story for children “The Storyteller and the Giant”. Her blog can be found here.

First-Feline Point of View by RD Hartwell

First-Feline Point of View
by RD Hartwell

I overheard someone say,
first-person is the true
method made to order,
putting one’s persona forward,
transmitting all related life
from one’s own point-of-view.

Well, I am not a person!
Don’t really want to be one,
I’m a cat, that’s felis catus,
and a good one for all that.

Kitten-written stories, myths,
memoirs, and self-biography,
should all have cat-perspective,
First-Feline POV!

I like the singsong sound,
such euphonic melody,
neo-literary label,
kitten-written totality.

Lest you think it’s easy
writing as a cat,
Let me disabuse you,
challenge you to those
obstacles to my fiction
purrr-fection with which
I daily have to deal.

There is the oft-presumed
handicap of not being
able to push pen or pencil;
but, new computer
methodology,
as one can plainly see,
creates a neat solution;
not a bone to pick
but a boon for me.

I used to meow-morize
creative contributions,
relating them aloud,
fables and folklore,
essays, lies, and more,
anecdotal aphorisms or
extended metaphor.

Now I am no longer limited,
to catalogues by word-of-mouth,
and by a memory taxed to break,
now given way to memory sticks.

All I ask from others now
is to be left alone to type.

fat cat by Jonathan Pinnock

fat cat
by Jonathan Pinnock


fat cat came up from the city

fat cat such a charming kitty

fat cat sits at our back door

fat cat always hungry for more



fat cat manky fat cat smelly

fat cat has a bloated belly

fat cat never says “enough”

fat cat feeling rather rough



fat cat starts to whine and wince

fat cat throws up over our chintz

fat cat does what he does best

fat cat repays us – with interest

The Confession of a Cat

The Confession of a Cat
by Changming Yuan

like a pile of compressed fog
caught on a twig at the mountainwaist
the cat hunches on the sofa's shoulder
where i see the whole house of life
genetically domesticated behind the doors
that most hateful human invention

yes, i am a bimental being
as my feline friend has revealed
i can readily detect the moods
of my human family members
often switching my personality
with my drifting kittenhood
as i tease or avoid them behind doors
who know i enjoy solitary stalking
and respect my rented privacy
but none of them was born in the year of my day
since my ancestor was cheated shamefully
out of a ridiculous race in chinese zodiac

the inside doors are ajar or unlocked
but the one facing the free spirits of nature
is always tightly closed, separating me
from my other self born to prefer
to stroll in the wild than sit in the house
once i sneak out of the threshold
i will never give a backward glance
yet I will keep my grooming habit
by using my long tongue to clean the dirtiest
and most private parts of my authentic being
somewhere in the wildness



Changming Yuan, twice Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman(2009), grew up in a remote Chinese village and has published poems in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, London Magazine and more than 250 other literary publications worldwide.

My Cat Phillippe by Lisa B.

My Cat Phillippe
by Lisa B.

Phillippe, Phillippe, you most sable of cats,
Bringer of all things happy, murderer of rats,
What are you thinking, oh noble lord of ghetto fief?
A castrato at 5 months, it must not be of obtaining a wife.


Phillippe, Phillippe, your eyes do glow,
God’s palate of orange, green, and yellow.
Do those orbs vaguely conceal a soul?
Of conscious thought beyond the scope of human control?
Do you give me comfort when I weep?
Or has your mistress torn the fetters of sanity away
in a single cat-like leap?


Phillippe, Phillippe, a Christmas gift for me,
Better than electronics and in the end much more costly.
You were sick and dying, we did not know,
Thank God for modern medicine, my beloved friend,
and 800 dollars or so.


Phillippe, Phillippe, named after a professor,
you must be more than a little bit clever,
With a cat’s heart from a broken mold
and a personality too precious to be sold,
Phillippe the great and the bold.


But tell me, Phillippe, tell me please,
where were you those two months you took leave ?
When we moved to the new neighborhood,
and I feared you were lost for good?
Until one evening, there you stood.
Did you love me so much that you made sure you to find me again?
Now never roaming far from home,
Phillippe, Phillippe, my most constant friend,
I love you forever, understand?

My Friend with the Big Green Eyes by Debbie Bongiovanni-Sharp

MY FRIEND WITH THE BIG GREEN EYES
Debbie Bongiovanni-Sharp

I have a friend with big green eyes,
Who knows when I'm happy or sad,
She's always there by my side,
And for that I'm so very glad.

When I'm upset she seems to know,
Just how to make me smile,
She is the smartest cat that I've ever seen,
And she does it with so much style.

I'm so very grateful for my cat,
And that is sure no lie,
She is the best friend anyone can have,
The one with the big green eyes.

Our Mother Tongue by Delbert R. Gardner

Our Mother Tongue
By Delbert R. Gardner


Dear wife and I were talking of the need
For language, when our two cats had a spat--
The Tiger ambled near the Persian's feed,
The Persian growled, and Tiger went and sat
Some paces off in quiet dignity.
"Cats understand each other in any tongue,"
My pretty green-eyed wife explained to me.
To which I answered, "Yes, the idiom
Is all of language with animals, but still
They have so little to communicate."
"Correct--it's mostly fear and how to fill
Their bellies," she agreed, "--and love and hate."
"Come to think of it," I said in play,
"About the same things humans have to say!



"My father, Delbert R. Gardner, made his best cat friend later in life. Andy, a gray and white tabby, got off to a rocky start by repeatedly bouncing off my father's new hernia incision. But he soon redeemed himself with his devotion to Dad, approaching him each evening with the request that Dad put him to bed in his basket, sometimes with a song. A constant companion, "Andy boy" soon won the accolade "old buddy, old pal" and slept with my parents at night. Other poems of Dad's featuring cats of one stripe or another have appeared in Fine Arts Discovery and Spirit; Dad has also written about bulls, dogs, fish, mermaids, and other creatures. Over forty of Dad's poems and stories have appeared in publications such as The Literary Review, Poetry Digest, American Poetry Magazine, Provincetown Review, and Christian Science Monitor, among others." - Lyn Gardner

Marmalade Cats by R.D. Hartwell

Marmalade Cats
by R.D. Hartwell

Marmalade cats and plump muffin mice,
Toasted in dreams all through my head.

Invited to dance in a marshmallow sky,
They pirouette, curtsy; cavorting so high.

Parading across a sleepyhead's bed,
Such visions of mirth and antics are nice.


While memories of childhood cascade all around,
Only death and destruction around me abound.