King Street cat
Ears back, he steps throughour fence's jagged holethen freezes in the sunseeing my head moveback-tracking to the limestonebaking in our winter garden.
Over heavy, glossy lawnthat rockpile floatslike a ragged cloud.Cat waits inside.No-one else knows.No-one hears his heart tickunder that hot stone.
–Graham Kershaw
Given
The cat stretched in the sun.The olive dappled light on his coat.The tail black, a spot of white at the tip.Under the gum, the spitfiresseasonal. Beesin the lavender. The scentrubbed between fingers. A tennis ballin the seaside daisy. The thymedying. The liquid amberby the tap and the water meter ticking.The suckers cut back at the baseof the olive. The sudden skythat looks back from behinda day moon, like a lover.The memory of salt. The hand of the soil inmy hand. Gritty with gumnuts.The pollen in my breathing. The matterlingers.
–Anne Elvey
Cat poem
While in the thickness of dreamsPlush sleep,There was a screeching of wheelsWhich turned,Skidded.A skullOnly made for mice and mewingWas crushed under the blow.You had been found curled upAlong the roadTongue protrudingEyes rolled,Blood trespassing from your mouthTo chestI stretched,Embellished the sumptuousness of sleepYou writhed, struggledAs if respite lay in shifting the painFrom one place to another,As the sky turned purple,OrangeAnd then a bright white.
–Kerry Ridgway
The muse Adjusting the seat simply by sitting,the brooch on her breast, a butterfly flitting,a rhyme scheme too pretty,but scarcely without meaning,when she speaks of cats and dogs,suddenly, it's teeming.Each day now, dressed in autumn's hues,is met with an umbrella, yet never shoes.
–Michael Crotty
Saints belt Cats
The very first footy game I saw up close and personal with my own naked holy eyeballsWas just after the twentieth century after the birth of the thin dusty Jewish guy shuffledTo a close at last; people were still gaping at the smoking century like it was a car crash,And the new one had opened with murder as well, thugs crowing in a cave over the kidsThey roasted by sending other older kids to be roasted. The normal ever it has been thus.We walked to the arena in a burbling seethe of red and black and blue and white scarves.I didn't have much hope. Soon I would be fifty. Love was fitful and glorious and painful.Ever it has been thus. I had no concept of the game at all. We were near the St Kilda end.Generous friends explained the game to me as best they could but I saw only mere chaosUntil a moment in the second quarter, when a