Friday Poetry: Don Marquis

Happy Friday!

I chose this poem because we have a Tom Cat who terrorises our poor cats and does anything he possibly can to get into our house. Thankfully we have a very clever cat flap that will only let our cats in.

 

The Tom-Cat

At midnight in the alley

A tom-cat comes to wail,

And he chants the hate of a million years

As he swings his snaky tail.

 

Malevolent, bony, brindled,

Tiger and devil and bard,

His eyes are coals from the middle of Hell

And his heart is black and hard.

 

He twists and crouches and capers

And bares his curved sharp claws,

And he sings to the stars of the jungle nights

Ere cities were, or laws.

 

Beast from a world primeval,

He and his leaping clan,

When the blotched red moon leers over the roofs

Give voice to their scorn of man.

 

He will lie on a rug tomorrow

And lick his silky fur,

And veil the brute in his yellow eyes

And play he’s tame and purr.

 

But at midnight in the alley

He will crouch again and wail,

And beat the time for his demon’s song

With the swing of his demon’s tail.

 

Don Marquis

 

I couldn’t get a picture of the annoying Tom Cat so I took a picture of my cat Pan instead.