Roberta Writes – The Gift: A poem about cats for d’Verse Poetry Challenge #d’Verse #poetry #cats

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Here is your assignment! Choose one of the artworks contained herein, and write a poem inspired by the artwork. Simple enough, right? There’s just one catch–you may not use the word cat anywhere in your poem, including the title. Other feline terminology is acceptable. Do let us know which work you have chosen in your post.

You can read other poems for this prompt here: https://dversepoets.com/2024/04/23/if-you-dont-like-cats-im-sorry

Louis Wain, What Shall We Do With The Feathers?

“Pushy!”

The shriek electrifies my fur

Alerts the feather ball to danger

Destroys my hunt

The baby bird flaps across the lawn

Leaping straight into the pool

Drat! I don’t like water

Turning, head held high

I stalk away

My human snatches up

the long-poled pool net

Scoops the bundle out of the water

Out of the corner of my eye

I watch her rub it dry

She sets it under a flower in a pot

Bonus!

There is no accounting for her stupidity

She leaves

I watch her walk up the path

I feel the grin

It’s splitting my face

My stomach grumbles

One leap – I’m perfectly balanced

on the lip of the pot

One swat – the quivering baby flies

up and out; landing on the grass

with a slight bounce

Eager for a game

of play with the mouse

or, in this case

play with the bird

I pounce

It’s dead

How disappointing

Baby birds are no fun

It died of shock before I could start

my teasing and tormenting

Pathetic!

“Yowl!”

I call my sister over

We enjoy our snack

“What about these?”

Smudge waves a paw

at the bloody pile of feathers.

“Don’t worry, sister,

I have a plan”

“Pushy!”

The screech pulls me from sleep

What now?

“Maybe she didn’t like our gift”

We look at each other

And grin

Picture caption: a cute picture of Smudge with her tongue out
Picture caption: Queen Push-Push stretched out in the sunshine

Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

Published

90 thoughts on “Roberta Writes – The Gift: A poem about cats for d’Verse Poetry Challenge #d’Verse #poetry #cats”

    1. Hi Melissa, it is based on a mixture of two events. The baby bird bit is real up to the pot plant part. I put Pushy away in the house and the parents came for the little one and they somehow got it back up the tree into the nest. It survived. The dead baby was another bird that I didn’t know about until it was too late.

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  10. Dark and cleverly written. So true of dogs and cats, though i suspect cats are more sneaky.

    I went to visit my elderly neighbour who has a miniature Dachshund Dolly. She was in the back garden and said she had seen a big mouse and hoped Dolly didn’t find it. At that very moment Dolly popped out of a flowerbed triumphantly and vigorously shaking the mouse in her elegant jaw. My neighbour was frantic, how could we rescue the mouse, but it was obviously dead, it’s neck broken I expect. My poor neighbour could not believe her dog was a murderer.

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    1. Hi Janet, cats are more sneaky than dogs. I suppose they need to be, being smaller. It is normal for a dog to kill a mous and also for the dog to bring it to it’s human as a gift. I get gifts of lizards and mice. I don’t get gifts of birds any more. I’ve trained Push and Smudge. That part of this story is not true, although the beginning part is.

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  24. ooops: sorry Roberta, somehow I missed this one: this is excellent — all the thrill of the chase, portraying the felines’ inner mind ; such gory fun; I’ve seen this played out time and again in my partner’s back yard: not much fun for the bird though 😦

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  30. Hahahahaha That is about the cutest poem I’ve ever read. The stupid human, the smiles that cracked their faces about split mine, too. What shall we do with the feathers? Baby birds are no fun. I’m still cracking up. I must be a terrible person.

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      1. It is still so funny. My cats did kill birds when we lived in CA. They had about 2 acres to roam and guard that were theirs, then they could roam around the other vacant lots on the street as well, not that they needed to do that. If that wasn’t enough, a creek ran behind our house – at least during part of the year. It was pretty wild back there, and they had lots of fun with their friends. Our neighbor lady has a feral cat colony of about 60 cats, so they have lots of friends.

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