They don’t care!

Cats sleep

Anywhere.

Eleanor Farjeon

Cat

Cat

My cat has got no name,

We simply call him Cat;

He doesn’t seem to blame

Anyone for that.

For he is not like us

Who often, I’m afraid,

Kick up quite a fuss

If our names are mislaid.

As if, without a name,

We’d be no longer there

But like a tiny flame

Vanish in bright air.

My pet, he doesn’t care

About such things as that:

Black buzz and golden stare

Require no name but Cat.

Vernon Scannell

Charlotte’s Dog

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!

Kit Wright

Tell It to the Dog

Tell It to the Dog

If you have had

an awful day

and no one wants

to come and play

and all your woes

won’t go away,

just tell it to the dog.

If everybody

picks on you

and all your plans

have fallen through;

if you feel lonely,

sad and blue,

just tell it to the dog.

Dogs do not judge.

They understand.

They rub your leg.

They lick your hand.

If you feel lost

in no-man’s-land

just tell it to the dog.

Dogs keep your secrets

safe within.

They don’t care if

you lose or win.

So turn that frown

into a grin

and tell it to the dog!

(Or, failing that,

make do with the cat . . .)

Joshua Seigal

A Meerkat Lullaby

A Meerkat Lullaby

Hush pretty meerkitten don’t you cry

Mummy will sing you a lullaby

Daddy on guard, is standing near

Ready to bark should danger appear

His back is straight, his hindlegs long

His hearing acute, his eyesight strong

So go to sleep my little beauty

Safe with Daddy on sentry duty.

Roger McGough

Weird Wildlife

Weird Wildlife

It’s a queer cat

Is the meerkat.

It cannot purr or miaow.

And how odd-ish

That no dogfish

Knows how to bow-wow-wow.

The ladybird

Is seldom heard

To tweet, and never sings.

And that wombat’s

Too round and fat

To be a mouse with wings.

There are no ants

Like eleph ants,

None even near their size.

And guinea pigs

Aren’t mini pigs

And don’t inhabit sties

While the mongoose

Is a wrong goose.

You’ll seldom see one fly.

And bushbabies

Are hushed babies

That hardly ever cry.