Jake the Cat
After I have made the bed
Jake leaves me his toy
This is his devotion and gift to me
in the early morning.
Jake leaves me his toy after
I have left for work. Maybe
he is hoping I’ll return?
So, he waits.
I find the toy
Jake has left for me
when I return home
and it reminds me
that I left early in the morning
and he has been home all day
sharing his toy.
-Corinne Walsh
Missy
We knew she hadn’t long to live
when she couldn’t move from the corner
of the kitchen floor the night before
she died, but it was still a shock
when a neighbour knocked on the door
next day to ask if we had a cat,
a white one? Somehow she’d got outside
to the pavement, not the road,
thank goodness. Rescued
by the RSPCA, a tear in her ear,
we never guessed she’d last sixteen years.
Her painful paws couldn’t carry her
any further, her claws spiralled
like fossils, they’d kept growing
as she grew too old to have them cut.
-Peter J. Donnelly
Seven Species
First there was Missy the mongrel
from the RSPCA,
at least 144 in cat years
when she passed away.
Then stray Kitty,
dark as a witch’s cat
with a kink in her tail
who brought in a rat.
Tiger the Tabbie
was chalk to black Lilly’s cheese,
as different as Biscuit, Grandma’s ginger tom
from Heathcliff, her Siamese.
Once white Willow goes
there’ll be no more cats.
I’d have one myself
if I didn’t live in a flat.
-Peter J. Donnelly
Sunil Sharma tries to create a Murakami-laced moment by outlining a late afternoon conversation between strangers. The protagonist, a filmmaker find a subject of instant interest in a coconut-seller who seems unnaturally knowledgeable about Haruki Murakami. He tells an inspiring story of triumphing over evil and disappears completely (with his coconut stall) the next day. Sharma catcher his reader off-guard, drawing them in, warming their hearts and leaving them with a bewildered look on their faces. – Shreya, The Bombay Review
The story appears in The Bombay Review:
https://thebombayreview.com/2020/05/26/cats-murakami-and-a-mystery-encounter-sunil-sharma/
Another cat story by Sunil appears in Different Truths.
-Sunil Sharma
Cat Called Nothing
JPS calls me Nothing. (Apologies to Jean-Paul Sartre)
Catness carries being at its heart.
I am condemned to be free.
If I tremble at the slightest noise,
If each creak announces me a look.
This is because I am already in the state
Of being-looked-at.
Catness haunts being. Hell is other people.
Catness lies coiled at the heart of being
like a worm.
Consciousness is a being,
the nature of which is to be conscious
of the Catness of its being.
Bios And Links
-Corinne Walsh
As a small child Corinne Walsh wrote little notes and left them where people might accidentally find them, in mailboxes, in pockets, even under rocks. Composing thoughts and writing down feelings only to cast them out into the world started as a child’s experiment in expression, and 50 years later the habit survives.
-Sunil Sharma
a senior academic and author-freelance journalist from the suburban Mumbai, India. He has published 21 books so far, some of which are solo efforts and some joint. He edits Setu: http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html
-Peter J. Donnelly
lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary. He has a degree in English Literature and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wales Lampeter. He has been published in various magazines and anthologies including One Hand Clapping, Dreich, High Window, Southlight and Writer’s Egg. He came second in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition and was a joint runner up in the Buzzwords open poetry competition in 2020.
The Wombwell Rainbow 