Friday Extras: Seven Poems About Cats

It's still national poetry month, so I'm still posting poems here on the blog. Today I've chosen seven cat-related poems. Why seven? Well, because seven is the number of purr-fection, of course!

The Cat and the Moon
William Butler Yeats

THE cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet.
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

Muier
William Carlos Williams

Oh, black Persian cat!
Was not your life
already cursed with offspring?
We took you for rest to that old
Yankee farm, — so lonely
and with so many field mice
in the long grass —
and you return to us
in this condition —!

Oh, black Persian cat.

The Naming of Cats
T.S. Eliot (read by the author)

from The Cat's Song

Marge Piercy (read the rest here)

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,

says the cat, although I am more equal than you.

Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?

Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Cat

J.R.R. Tolkien

The fat cat on the mat

 may seem to dream

of nice mice that suffice

 for him, or cream;

but he free, maybe,

 walks in thought

unbowed, proud, where loud

 roared and fought

his kin, lean and slim,

 or deep in den

in the East feasted on beasts

 and tender men.

The giant lion with iron

 claw in paw,

and huge ruthless tooth

 in gory jaw;

the pard dark-starred,

 fleet upon feet,

that oft soft from aloft

 leaps upon his meat

where woods loom in gloom —

 far now they be,

 fierce and free,

 and tamed is he;

but fat cat on the mat

 kept as a pet

 he does not forget.

My Cat

Tom Kimmel (Read by the author -- buy The Sweetest and The Meanest, Tom Kimmel's wonderful poetry collection here).

And finally, A poem about a cat-like poem:

The Poem Cat
Erica Jong

Sometimes the poem
doesn't want to come;
it hides from the poet
like a playful cat
who has run
under the house
& lurks among slugs,
roots, spiders' eyes,
ledge so long out of the sun
that it is dank
with the breath of the Troll King.

Sometimes the poem
darts away
like a coy lover
who is afraid of being possessed,
of feeling too much,
of losing his essential
loneliness-which he calls
freedom.

Sometimes the poem
can't requite
the poet's passion.

The poem is a dance
between poet & poem,
but sometimes the poem
just won't dance
and lurks on the sidelines
tapping its feet-
iambs, trochees-
out of step with the music
of your mariachi band.

If the poem won't come,
I say: sneak up on it.
Pretend you don't care.
Sit in your chair
reading Shakespeare, Neruda,
immortal Emily
and let yourself flow
into their music.

Go to the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo.

Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration.

When the whole house is filled
with the tender tomato aroma,
start kneading the pasta.

As you rock
over the damp sensuous dough,
making it bend to your will,
as you make love to this manna
of flour and water,
the poem will get hungry
and come
just like a cat
coming home
when you least
expect her.