Cover

About the Author

Puffin Books

CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS

Kit Wright was born in 1944 in Kent. He was educated at Berkhamsted school and New College, Oxford. He taught in a London Comprehensive and has spent three years lecturing in English Literature at Brock University, Ontario, Canada. He has also worked as Education Secretary to the Poetry Society in London, and was Fellow-Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge. Kit Wright now devotes all his time to poetry and is well known for his collections and anthologies, as well as being a performer and teacher.

Also by Kit Wright

Hot Dog and Other Poems

Chosen by Kit Wright

Poems for 9-year-olds and Under

Poems for Over 10-year-olds

The New Puffin Book of Funny Verse

CAT

Among the Pigeons

Poems by Kit Wright

Illustrated by Posy Simmonds

PUFFIN BOOKS

Dedication

For Zoe Redmond, Zoe Hilton,

Zoe Newton, Alexander Wright,

Caroline Maclean, Spike Sterne,

Dominic Scriven, Timothy Scriven,

Finbar Wright and Charlotte Martin

Nothing Else

There’s nothing I can’t see

From here.

There’s nothing I can’t be

From here.

Because my eyes

Are open wide

To let the big

World come inside,

I think I can see me

From here.

A Simple Story of Accrington Stanley

A nasty old woman once lived in Accrington Town

With a face that was blocked with rage like a stopped clock,

And she spoke harsh words in a sort of a strangled voice,

Like a person who for some reason has swallowed a sock.

But mostly she said nothing at all. It was no good

Wishing that woman good morning or calling, ‘Goodnight’,

But there was a boy in Accrington Town called Stanley

Who thought to himself he just might put things right.

He was kicking a football about on a waste-ground patch

By ragwort and chickweed against a garage wall,

And he spied a Coke can and widened the V-hole out

With a stone, and cut himself not too badly at all.

Then he stuffed the blazing ragwort and frosty chickweed

And mauvely smouldering willowherb into the can

And ran with it round to the nasty old woman of Accrington,

Who sat as lonely as an empty removal van.

Croaked, ‘Why have you brought me this?’ ‘It’s a present,’ said Stanley.

‘A present? Not ever has anyone brought me one.’

‘Well, I have,’ said Stanley. ‘And so you have!’ cried the lady,

And danced both up and down and shone like the sun.

Then she took his hands and jigged with him round the kitchen,

One foot up, then one and a half feet down,

And ever since then has been known as the jolliest woman

That ever pranced the streets of Accrington Town!

Well, an aeroplane would be good and an elephant

Is always acceptable, but they’re hard to find,

And whatever you’ve got will do wonderfully well if you mean it;

Be kind to someone who’s stuck. It makes them kind.