Bugsy (The Villain)
Our little mischief maker
is as cute as any kitten –
perhaps we ought to wonder
why he came to be ‘The Villain’.
Nose of purest, silky snot,
he nuzzles uninvited
and everything the humans give
is seven times requited.

The others?
Why, they hate him
(I’m repeating them verbatim).
He waits at garden gates to hunt them down
and when it’s time for nibbles,
he’s the architect of quibbles;
you should see the way his patient mother frowns.

He’ll finish with a little squeak
and leave the humans smitten,
but to other more discerning folk,
he still remains ‘The Villain’.

Gatsby
He was the big boned kind of cat
and I used to love him so.
I’d pick him up and hold him close,
his purr vibrating through my arms
and if anything was troubling me,
he told it where to go.

He was an easy going cat
but always in the lead.
If anyone should show their claws
and question his authority,
he’d sit on them with all his weight
and soon, they would concede.

He used to go adventuring,
so confident and rash.
He’d disappear for hours and hours,
make the humans pace and fret,
but always came back in the end;
that is, before the crash

and the humans hoped and cried and prayed
and told him it would be okay

and now he’s just a tub of lard
whose mission is to eat.
His gait is slightly wonky
so he’s rubbish with a laser pen,
but his purr is even stronger now
so everything’s complete.

Lawrence Moore is 42 and has been writing poetry since childhood. He lives in Portsmouth, England, sharing a house overlooking a graveyard with his husband Matt and 9 mostly well behaved cats. He has poetry published or forthcoming at ‘Sarasvati’, ‘Dreich’, ‘Nine Muses’ and ‘Star and Crescent’. Twitter: @LawrenceMooreUK.