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.

Charlotte’s Dog

Daniel the spaniel has ears like rugs,

Teeth like prongs of electric plugs.

His back’s a thundery winter sky,

Black clouds, white clouds rumbling by.

His nose is the rubber of an old squash ball

Bounced in the rain. His tail you’d call

A chopped-off rope with a motor inside

That keeps it walloping. Red-rimmed-eyed,

He whimpers like plimsolls on a wooden floor.

When he yawns he closes a crimson door.

When he barks it’s a shark of a sound that bites

Through frosty mornings and icy nights.

When he sleeps he wheezes on a dozing lung:

Then he wakes you too with a wash of his tongue!

Round

Many hounds are found about

Bounding round the roundabout,

In and out the roundabout

And round and round the roundabout,

And when a hound is found about

Bounding round the roundabout,

We impound that bounding hound

And ground him in the downtown pound,

Where you for round about a pound

May reclaim your bounding hound,

But if you leave him in the pound

We’ll hound him out of town!

Advice to Spiders

The spider is a very short person with very long legs

That are fine for advancing

On a fly in a sticky web

But utterly useless for dancing.

You can see two bees up

Over the sunny clover,

Body-popping,

But you can’t imagine two spiders having a knees-up

On their springy floor.

It’s those complicated legs that have stopped the bopping

For ever more.

They’d be so entangled

They’d get mangled,

So interrelated

They’d get amputated.

So I advise spiders:

Leave your dancing pumps on the shelf

And keep your legs to yourself.

Granny Tom

There’s a cat among the pigeons

In the yard, in the yard,

And it seems he isn’t trying

Very hard.

Should a pigeon chance to swoop,

You can see his whiskers droop

And his tail not twitch its loop

In the yard.

For the cat is growing old

In the yard, in the yard,

And the pigeons leave him cold.

He has starred

In his youth in many chases,

When he put them through their paces.

Now he knows just what his place is

In the yard.

He’s a snoozer in the sun

And his hunting days are done.

He’s a dozer by the wall

And he pounces not at all

For he knows he no more can. He

Might well be the pigeons’ granny

In the yard!

Mothering

Half-falling, half-flying, the young sparrow

Looped from the nest, and the cat

Leaped and snagged it out of the air,

Padded into the shade

With the bird warm in her mouth,

Ripped it apart and ate it,

Then lay on her side in the kitchen

Among the feathers,

Suckling each one

Of her innocent kittens, and purring.

The Cobra’s Crimbo

A cobra once at Christmastime

(His name was Jim or Jimbo)

Lay sleeping, coiled, beside his wife

Who sat with coils akimbo.

Then he awoke and cried, ‘Alas!

I’m lost in mental limbo.

I wish I was a poet like

My old mate Arthur Rimbo.

Then I‘d have words to wish for you

A truly Happy Crimbo.’

His wife unforked her tongue and smiled

‘My slithery and slim beau!

You just have done, my darling one,

So don’t be such a dimbo!’

‘And New Year too,’ the cobra said,

And whizzed off up the chimbo.

Sadie Goes to Sea

A dinner lady

Whose name was Sadie

(Her boy called Roy

And her man called Stan)

In an old Land Rover

Went galloping over

The tussocky fields

Of the lsle of Man.

They met a squirrel

Whose name was Cyril

(Who came from the Wirral)

And gave him a lift:

They found a bonnet

With badges on it

And draped it over

That old gear-shift.

A water-logged welly

Name-marked ‘Kelly’

They slung right on to

That rusty exhaust:

They picked up a rider

Who’d been astride a

Stallion but sadly

Got de-horsed.

They scooped up a piglet,

Thin as a twiglet,

And fed him up on

Potato peel.

Which they kept in the boot

For just such a cute

Young porky person

To gobble a meal.

They found a donkey

Whose legs were wonky

And settled him down

In the back of the car:

They stole a rhino

With skin like lino,

Wrinkled and worn

In a public bar.

Now, that old Land Rover

Was spilling over

With animal extras

And people too,

But it kept on bumping

All over the jumping

Fields of Man

With its personal zoo –

Till the dinner lady

Whose name was Sadie

Her boy called Roy

And her man called Stan,

The squirrel called Cyril

(Who came from the Wirral),

Mistreated, unseated,

The horse-riding man,

The twiglet piglet,

The wonky donkey,

The lino rhino

And all the rest

Jumped over a hedge

By the ocean’s edge

And drove in shouting,

‘WATER’S BEST!’

March Dusk

About the hour light wobbles

Between the day and night,

On paving-stones and cobbles

Rain hisses with weak spite

And plane trees dangling bobbles,

Drip leafless from numb height

Where wounded springtime hobbles

That soon will leap with light.

Fishing Vessel

The hawthorn tree

that trawled its catch

of crimson berries

in its scratchy net

a wild way out

in the rending winds

dreams at anchor

but soon will hoist

its new white sails

on the late spring tide.

Sid the Rat

Sid was a rat

Who kept a hat shop,

Ordinary sort of stuff:

Pork pies,

Panamas,

Old flat caps,

Bowlers,

Boaters

For old fat chaps,

Deerstalkers,

Stetsons…

And that was enough

For that shop!

Yes, Sid was a rat

Who kept a hat shop,

Ordinary sort of trade:

Eels,

Elks,

Dirty old foxes,

Skinny

Kittens

In travelling boxes,

Elephants,

Owls…

And business paid

In that shop!

One day the Mayor knocked on the door,

Said, ‘Sid, you can’t stay here no more!

We’re going to knock your hat shop down

To build a new road through the town!’

‘Is that a fact?’

Said Sid the Rat,

‘Is that a fact?’

Said he.

‘We’ll see!

You build your road and I’ll get my hats,

And I’ll stack them up like a block of flats

Right in the middle

And, hey-diddle-diddle,

The cars won’t know

Which way to go!

And I’ll get the elk,

And the dirty old fox,

And the kitten

Out of her travelling box,

And the slithering eel,

And the wise owl too,

And the elephant

On his way to the zoo,

And I’ll tell you what they’ll do!

They’ll pull those drivers out,

Willy-nilly,

And they’ll tickle those drivers

And tickle them silly!

There’ll be huge traffic jams

But they won’t care!

So how do you like that,

Mr Mayor?’

‘Oh,’ said the Mayor.

‘Oh dear,’ said the Mayor.

‘Hum,’ said the Mayor.

‘I fear,’ said the Mayor,

‘You’d better keep your hat shop, Sid,

And carry on the way you did!’

Sid

Did!

Dave Dirt’s Jacket Pocket

In Dave’s jacket pocket

the last time I looked

was half a cold burger

three days ago cooked,

a dead mouse, ten dog hairs,

a chip, chewing gum,

a two-week-old note

to the Head from his mum,

a very old conker

that mouldiness grows on,

a twisted Tube ticket

for blowing his nose on,

a bitten-off fingernail,

part of a snail,

the tongue of a snake

and a dry lizard’s tail,

a piece of a sweet

just as sticky as glue,

all forming together

a horrible stew!

Don’t ask him to show you.

Of this there’s no doubt:

one look at the thing will

turn you inside out!

Get This Straight

Dear Uncle Sam, dear Uncle Sam,

Do you not know what sex I am,

Or is the whole thing just your little joke?

If it’s a joke, I’m not amused

That you pretend to be confused:

It makes me yowl: it makes me boil and choke.

It’s no good shouting, ‘What a chap!’

The fact is that I’m not a chap

And have no wish at all to be a bloke!

But there again, if your mistake

Is genuine – for heaven’s sake,

Your head must truly be as thick as oak!

It’s no good yelling, ‘Attaboy!

Look lively! What’s the matter, boy?’

The matter is that I am NOT A BLOKE!

Got that, Auntie?

Zoe’s Ear-rings

She bought ’em in the autumn

After spotting ’em in Nottingham.

She took ’em home to Cookham

And she put ’em in a drawer

Till May came and the day came

When she wore ’em down to Shoreham,

But nobody was for ’em

So she wore ’em nevermore…

Till the wedding of her sister

To a mister out at Bicester,

Name of Jimmy, who said, ‘Gimme,’

So without ’em she went home,

But she nipped back down to nick ’em

For a knees-up in High Wycombe,

For an evening quite near Chevening

And a dawn at Kilmacolm.

They were in ’er for a dinner

Which was excellent, in Pinner,

And another one, a cracker,

In Majacca – that’s in Spain –

Then she popped ’em on in Haddenham

And didn’t feel too bad in ’em:

She felt in ’em, in Cheltenham,

Just as right as rain.

They looked smart on in Dumbarton,

They looked wizard on the Lizard,

They looked corking down in Dorking

And incredible in Crewe.

When she wore ’em into Rugely

They impressed the people hugely,

While in Fordham folk adored ’em,

And they loved ’em in West Looe!

The citizens of Kettering

Had never seen a better ring,

In fact no better pair of ’em –

‘Take care of ’em!’ they cried.

Then she slithered into Lytham with ’em,

Shaking out a rhythm with ’em,

Wobb-er-ling and jogg-er-ling

Her head from side to side.

Folk in Preston thought the best ’un

Was the right ’un. In New Brighton

And in Sefton, though, the left ’un

Was the one they favoured more,

While in Greenham, when they’d seen ’em,

They said, ‘How to choose between ’em?

What one praises in its brother,

In the other one is for!’

Then she tried ’em with new make-up

On a sponsored run round Bacup,

And at Norwich for a porridge-

Eating contest which she won,

But, spilling ’em in Gillingham,

Her lobes felt light in Willingham,

And nothing else is filling ’em,

So now

The poem’s

Done!

Mr Angelo

Mr Angelo’s dead and gone,

And the worrying thought

Has entered my head:

How will the poor old man get on,

Him not speaking

A word of Dead?

Drinking Song

For weeks and weeks it wouldn’t rain.

My tree was growing rusty,

Leaves plugged with dust. Then suddenly

The rain came flooding like the sea.

The leaves went on a drinking spree.

I said, How are you doing, tree?

My tree said, Not so dusty!

Zoob

I

am

ZOOB.

You can’t fit me

in a triangle, a circle

or a cube.

I’m the empty seat beside you

on the 31 bus

or the Tube.

If you think you can describe me,

let me tell you that

you’re making a

BOOB.

I can see round corners,

I can look in your eyes.

You can’t see me,

but I’m wondrous wise.

I’m ZOOB.

That’s whoob.

I’m what the wind means

when it moans,

‘Zoob… Zoob.’

I’m what the sky says

when it groans,

‘Zoob… Zoob.’

I’m as near as you are,

I’m as far as the sun,

I’m everything

And I am one:

I’m youb…

Zoob…

ZOOB…

ZOOB…

Fast Food

Dorothy Hogg had a hot-dog stand:

Hottest dogs in all the land.

East and south and north and west,

Dot Hogg’s hot-dogs were the best!

What Was It?

What was it

that could make

me wake

in the middle of the night

when the light

was a long way from coming

and the humming

of the fridge was the single

tingle

of sound

all round?

Why, when I crept downstairs and watched

green numbers sprinting on the kitchen clock,

was I afraid the empty rocking chair

might start to rock?

Why, when I stole back up and heard

the creak of each stair to my own

heart’s quickening beats,

was I afraid that I should find

some other thing from the night outside

between my sheets?

Mercy

Mercy her name was,

The blind lady.

Took her home from bingo

Each Wednesday night,

With her stick tap-rapping

On the breeze-blocks.

She’d humour and love.

No sight.

And suddenly

I recall

Salt of a tide of darkness

Swirling up under that door

She swam through with her key

And turned no light on.

Why should she?

She left all light

Behind her,

Needing none

To find things there:

Things, it seemed,

Could find her.

Mercy.

Took her home from bingo

Each Wednesday night,

With her stick tap-rapping

On the breeze-blocks.

Mercy.

Heart of light.

Dave Dirt’s Christmas Presents

Dave Dirt wrapped his Christmas presents

Late on Christmas Eve

And gave his near relations things

That you would not believe.

His brother got an Odour-Eater –

Second-hand one, natch.

For Dad he chose, inside its box,

A single burnt-out match.

His sister copped the sweepings from

His hairy bedroom rug,

While Mum received a centipede

And Granny got a slug.

Next day he had the nerve to sit

Beneath the Christmas tree

And say: ‘OK, I’ve done my bit –

What have you got for me?’

Irish Haiku

Animal mountains

Sleeping in each other’s shade

In Connemara

Acorn Haiku

Just a green olive

In its own little egg-cup:

It can feed the sky.

The Head’s Hideout

The Head crouched in his hideout

Beneath a dustbin lid.

‘I want to see,’ he muttered,

‘No teacher and no kid,

No parent, no inspector,

Never a district nurse,

And, please, not one school dinner:

The things are getting worse!’

All morning, as the phone rang,

He hid away. Instead:

‘The Head is in the dustbin,’

The secretary said.

‘The Head is in the dustbin?’

‘Yes, he’ll be there all day.

He likes sometimes to manage

A little getaway.

Last year he went to Holland.

Next year he’s off to France.

Today he’s in the dustbin.

You have to take your chance.’

The Head sprang from the garbage

As end-of-school came round.

He cried, ‘That’s quite the nastiest

Hideaway I’ve found!

I think I’ll stick to teachers

And kids and parents too.

It’s just sometimes I’ve had enough.’

Don’t blame him. Do you?

The Singing Spud

This is the story of Chinese Li,

Who lived with his mother in Liverpool 3.

She kept a shop and she sold fried fish

And chips as crisp as a person could wish,

So people said you’d have to be dippy

To go anywhere but Li’s mum’s chippy

For fish and chips or hot meat pies

Or pickled cukes of gigantic size.

Out in the back room all day long

Chinamen sat and they played mah-jong

With their faces turned into scowls or smiles

By the clackety-clack of the falling tiles.

And Li came back from school each day

And helped his mum in the following way:

He peeled the spuds and he poured them in

To a sort of tumbling mechanical bin,

A type of rumbling electrical barrow.

They went in round and they came out narrow.

The slicing machine! When you come to grips with it,

Start with spuds and you end with chips with it.

One day Li was churning them round

To that deep old, hungry, grumbling sound

When he was amazed to hear a song

Raised from the slicer, loud and long:

Oh, I am a spud, a very old spud,

And I do not wish to die.

I’ve missed the boat and I’ve lost my coat

But I do not care to lie

In a number of bits in a pan that spits –

Without ever knowing why.

So Li was quick as the flash of a fin.

He whisked that spud from the slicing tin

And he set it up on the chip-shop shelf

Where this ancient potato sat by itself.

And when the Chinamen came to play

Each one of them wished the spud good day:

‘How are you doing? All right? OK?

Warm enough there? Good. That’s the way!’

At night it was off for a roll downtown

On a piece of string that Li swung down.

Now, some keep dogs and some keep cats

And some have zebras and some have rats

But Li, by city wall and hedge,

Walked with nothing but a singing veg.:

Oh, I am a spud, a very old spud,

And I’m glad I did not die.

For I’m free to roll on an evening stroll,

Which nobody can deny,

And there’s no spud in or out of mud

That’s quite as happy as I.

It sings it once, then it sings it again.

Li’s mum thinks the boy’s insane!

Freeze

Pocked snow, cold-Christmas-pudding earth,

The tracery of winter trees,

The sky in danger with the dusk,

The mare’s breath steaming in the freeze,

The sliding panes of river ice,

The olive water underneath,

The violet blade of last of light

That draws the darkness from its sheath.

Let’s Hear it for the Limpet

If there’s one animal that isn’t a wimp, it

Is the limpet.

Let me provide an explanation

For my admiration.

To start with, it’s got two thousand tiny teeth

Beneath

Its comical conical-hat-shaped, greeny-grey shell:

A tongue as well

That rasps the delicate seaweed through its front door:

What’s more –

And this is what gives me the greatest surprise –

Two bright eyes

Indoors at the end of long tentacles poking out, which

Twitch.

But its funniest feature by far is its foot

That’s put

Straight down to clamp it fast to the rock.

(Gulls knock,

You see, at the shell to try and winkle it off

For scoff.)

But the limpet does more with its foot than Ian Rush.

Forsaking the crush

Of its home life it stomps off, foraging, humping its shell with it,

Then thinks, ‘The hell with it,’

And slithers back to exactly where it began.

What a man

Is the limpet, in his wilderness of weed!

Needless to say, they make very good pets indeed.

The Site

Lengths of scaffolding

Bonging like tuning forks,

Grumbling barrows

Rumbling out over the ramps,

Sun-tanned, shirtless workmen singing,

Pulley ropes from high windows swinging,

The bursts of a drill

That churns and chews and champs,

One day will be

Number 1,2,3,

Houses quiet as neighbours

In a sheet of stamps.

Something He Left

An overcoat warming a clothes-hanger,

Alone in a cupboard after his body had gone

To be made into flame and memory,

Standing as still as he placed it,

Or very faintly trembling,

The night before the dawn he put death on.

Dave Dirt Was on the 259

Dave Dirt was on the 259

(Down Seven Sisters Road it goes),

And since he’d nothing else to do

He stuck his ticket up his nose,

He shoved his pen-top in his ear,

He pulled three hairs out of his head,

He ate a page out of his book,

He held his breath till he went red,

He stuck his tongue out at the queue,

He found a nasty scab to pick,

He burped and blew a raspberry,

He imitated being sick,

He stuck a piece of bubblegum

Inside a dear old lady’s bonnet.

If you should catch the 259,

Make sure that Dave Dirt isn’t on it!

Frosty Winds Made Moan

Old Frosty Winds

Is grizzled and raddled and sozzled and saddled

With much unhappiness where he sits

On the bench in the shopping precinct

On winter afternoons.

Sometimes he shouts at the people

And sometimes he shouts at himself.

His beard is like broken glass and his clothes like garbage.

Poor Frosty Winds,

With only a bottle for company

And what he has to say

In the tearing weather

To his sad head.

Soon he’ll be dead

As the litter that blows round his ankles,

As the supermarket tickets, screwed away, useless,

The bang of the trolleys that stack up alongside the wall

And the wind that will turn

On its journey.

What can you say to Frosty?

At least you can say goodbye.

Strange Service

A most peculiar postman

is working down our street.

He doesn’t hand the letters through –

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!