Poetry and Photography by Rhys Hughes
Slow cats loose.
Fast cats tight.
Cats of middling
velocity
are neither slack
nor light.
Pretty witty kitty,
heavy on the purrs,
I don’t know why
you remain so shy
with the passing
of the years.
No moonbeams in
our dreams
are mellower than you,
no hats in fact
have softer fur
in all of fashion history
(although it’s true
we lost the clue
to the solution
of that mystery.)
A smoother, cooler
ruler of
our town will never
be seen again.
The largest bat and
ten hot rats,
a gymnast and a clown,
however caught,
ought to frown
in random tandem
at the very thought.
Cats, cats, cats, cats,
cats, cats, cats
cats, cats,
cats.
Why do we keep thinking
about and winking at
and writing about
and glorifying
our cats?
Is there something
not quite right about that?
I don’t know,
I can’t say for sure,
but the accepted rules
of the matter in hand,
to say nothing
of the laws of the land,
require, nay demand,
that we appreciate,
accommodate,
adjudicate and anticipate,
authenticate
and tolerate
and even overcompensate
with great
enthusiasm cats!
The taut sort,
wiry and wild,
and the haughty taught sort,
portly and mild,
all belong in our domain:
that’s the main
thing for us to remember
(and they’ll never
let us forget it.)
In the meantime
it’s teatime: the slow cat
with eyes like saucers
watches the cup
of brimming brew
as it hovers
towards my mouth.
The hot liquid
will soon be going south
into the humid
tropicality of my belly.
This is a diversion,
a subject tangential to the
theme of cats.
Will the feline masters
regard teatime
as an incursion into a poem
that rightfully
belongs to them?
I don’t know but I hope not.
The knot of life
tangled from threads of strife
is undone by tea,
so let me be, feline fandango!
In a village we stayed,
picked blackberries and made
beautiful jam
(at least she did, I am
clueless at such things)
and every time
we stepped into the lane
the same slow cat
was sleeping
next to a windowpane,
and we tiptoed past fast
in order not to
wake him.
Cats, cats, cats, cats,
cats, cats, cats
cats, cats,
cats.
Why do we keep thinking
about and winking at
and writing about
and glorifying
our cats?
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International
Borderless 