Category: Poems

Clancy, the Tom

For want of better knowledge I sprayed Mortein on a fly,

Next day I was debating with a passer-by

If my action was a slaughter akin to keeping cats as pets

And we found ourselves in corners hurling threats.

 

Her defence was unexpected, loudly slating my remark

That her nightly pussy’s wander is always stark

I countered with some data that showed actions oh so foul

Of the antics of bush pussies on the prowl.

 

I quoted three hundred and ninety million lives lost every year

And that was just from pussies not considered dear

One hundred and eighty animals, or half a life each day

Went to fuckers who were now just seen as stray.

 

Sleeping in our laundry eating Felix wet cat food

And his toileting in litter quickly pooed

Oh that is so unfair to brand him, his bell makes such a din

That unwary fauna are always ahead of him.

 

Clancy did go out late one recent rainy night

With the lady cat next door, yes, twas possibly a fight

Eight weeks on and seven kitties are alive

No spaying on the table, just cuties left to thrive.

 

In quiet reflective moments, I have pondered Clancy’s antics

With his gonads floating proudly just below his hips

Of those seven off-spring restless, I bet they were mostly feckless

Free to roam to where the townsfolk rarely go.

 

From Flannery’s researched data I now must sadly quote it

And I’ve assumed the seven matured and were fit

Seven mouths, seven years, and half a life each day

From Clancy’s just one outing, eight thousand animals must now pay!

While paper makes up half their name

The sting suggests less tamer game

Falls prey, this an idle thought, for what

I need be giving is a lethal swat!

 

“Just grab the hose and lift it over that shrub, will ya”. At that moment, beachside, at Milikapiti, on Melville Island, all hell breaks loose. She screams, dances, runs round insanely, yelling hysterically, painfully. It took a moment to absorb the scene, but I run, inevitably joining the dance of the three hundred, wasps zeroing left, swipe, right, swipe, above and below, swipe, targeting two, as easy as one.

Such teeny small, weeny things,

nary a cent twould fit be-twixt their wings,

but packed complete with kryptonite

They leave a horrible, deadly bite

The beasties even come inside

To inspect the damage to our hide

We run and curse and flap abit

The ‘Mortein’ delivers a needed king-hit.

 

Red, raw, bleeding lumps grow menacingly, as clothes are stripped away and we sink, crammed into a hurriedly filled, calamine-infused bath. Seven minutes.

We eventually pick at each other; tweezers employed to draw the barbs. Tears, hiccups, blubbering easing, heart rates slowing, even reflective laughter at our intimate encounter with the beasties. Twenty minutes.

I am on alert for anaphylaxis. We sit en-bathed, refilled oft times for warmth, as we talk of the onslaught. Sixty minutes.

Heck, did I turn the hose off?

Skimble Shanks the railway cat was read to me at three

I don’t remember much of it ‘cept rhyme did capture me,

Mum the pages turned for hats, and a cat in coloured coat,

E’vn cashed up owls and pussy awash, at sea in a pea-green boat.

But if I’m honest, I must admit, the only puss worrying me,

Is the one that comes around at night, and shits on my Pe-on-y!

 

I set the trap the other night, I’d hired to work my scheme,

Ostensibly for retrieval, to remove the possum team,

But my real intent was dastardly bent, on trapping that fluffy shitter.

So I warmed the milk, and sent a prayer to dear little Mister Kitter,

An invocation sent by me, inviting one more spree,

As I placed the cage beside the couch and went inside for tea.

 

I dreamt a dream that final night of Tom’s oft streetly skives,

About a giant pterosaur that roamed the night time skies,

Intent on getting justice, jees so much bloody pshaw,

For lizards, birds and frogs of yore, dispatched via puss’s paw.

Enoughs’ enough her cry went out, safety and equality,

No more obfuscation dears, nor bleatings “nought here to see”.

 

When I awoke I took my smoke, and went outside to pee,

Forgotten last night’s trapping stunt, until delightedly,

I heard the hiss, I saw the face, and now I am a-doing,

This Puss was mine, his anger real, capture, his undoing.

“I wasn’t here” I heard him snarl, “You can’t believe this stuff”,

“I went outside for toileting, due home in just a juff!”*

 

“OK, OK, enough” I said, the cage I lift carefully,

To take a closer look to confirm the anatomy,

Did it match the fleeting glimpse of squatting arsehole shute,

Of scrape and grunt, a lick of paw, and tail waved in salute,

I had no doubt, resolve affirmed, so ready to dispatch,

A cage upon the neighbour’s lawn, with subtle note attached.

 

In part, it read: “keep yer fucking shitting-cat off my Peony, or else …!”

* (Ed: cat is of Kiwi origins)

Autumn passed by me, in barely a trot

One moment twas hot, and then, well, it was not

Yeh, I did see the changes, the trees turning brown

From the lounge room bay windows, the leaves falling down

But closed up inside home, your cut from the world

And the friend’s front-gate banter has all but been furled

So while sunshine was there, on one or two days

I know winter is coming, cos we’ve done most of Maze.

Matthew Flinders had a cat with which he went to sea
His boat was named Investigator, Trim his feline-e
They sailed around Australie in Eighteen two and three
So here I am considering how we mark that bi-cen-ten-ery.

I worked beside Encounter Bay a decade, maybe more
And had input to a talkfest, just a paltry group of four
Councillors that were very keen to caste a bronze of Trim
And erect it to commemorate where Nich met Matt and him.

I raised my hand and questioned why we’d want to celebrate
A cat, a blight, an escapee that has become the heavyweight
In unassisted, unimagined wildlife devastation
A mouser that has become the blight across our nation.

All were keen to caste a bronze except just lonely me
So as a compromise I suggest we bury Trim at Sea
He could rest exactly, and forever he could be
Where those seamen shared a mug, a pannikin of tea.

My unliked suggestion was verily, just ignored
First caste and then the bronze, very hot was duly poured
Trim’s likeness now stands wretchedly on Victor’s sandy shore
An ill considered memory, of stupidity, ever more.