Get Your Premium Membership
Member Area
Soup Social
Member Poems
Member Poets
Famous Poems
Famous Poets
Poetry Resources
Home » Famous Poems » Short Poems » Cat

Famous Short Cat Poems

Famous Short Cat Poems. Short Cat Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Cat short poems

by Spike Milligan 
 Pussy-cat
What are vices?
Catching rats
And eating mices!

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams 
 As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot
by Ezra Pound 
 It rests me to be among beautiful women
Why should one always lie about such matters?
I repeat:
It rests me to converse with beautiful women
Even though we talk nothing but nonsense,

The purring of the invisible antennae
Is both stimulating and delightful.
by Edward Lear 
C
  was a catWho ran after a rat;But his courage did failWhen she seized on his tail. 
c
 
Crafty old cat!
by Emily Dickinson 
 A little Dog that wags his tail
And knows no other joy
Of such a little Dog am I
Reminded by a Boy

Who gambols all the living Day
Without an earthly cause
Because he is a little Boy
I honestly suppose --

The Cat that in the Corner dwells
Her martial Day forgot
The Mouse but a Tradition now
Of her desireless Lot

Another class remind me
Who neither please nor play
But not to make a "bit of noise"
Beseech each little Boy --

by Mother Goose 
Ride away, ride away,  Johnny shall ride,And he shall have pussy-cat  Tied to one side;And he shall have little dog  Tied to the other,And Johnny shall ride  To see his grandmother.
Fog  Create an image from this poem
by Carl Sandburg 
 THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
by Elizabeth Bishop 
 Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
 Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
 The pleasantest surprise.

Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
 Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
 In the Marxist State.

Joy and Love will both be yours,
 Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon--
 Sleep, and let them come...
by Kobayashi Issa 
 Having slept, the cat gets up,
yawns, goes out
to make love.
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 
 The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
  fell in love
    with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
    the licorice sticks
  and tootsie rolls
 and Oh Boy Gum

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in 
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling
   and they cried
     Too soon! too soon!
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 
 The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where i first 
 fell in love
 with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
 the licorice sticks
 and tootsie rolls
 and Oh Boy Gum

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling
 and they cried
 Too soon! too soon!
by Stevie Smith 
 The shadow was so black,
I thought it was a cat,
But once in to it
I knew it
No more black
Than a shadow's back.

Illusion is a freak
Of mind;
The cat's to seek.
by Carl Sandburg 
 Close-mouthed you sat five thousand years and never
let out a whisper.
Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you
answered with grey eyes never blinking, shut lips
never talking.
Not one croak of anything you know has come from your
cat crouch of ages.
I am one of those who know all you know and I keep my
questions: I know the answers you hold.
by Edward Lear 
C
  was Papa's gray Cat,Who caught a squeaky Mouse; She pulled him by his twirly tailAll about the house.
by Wanda Phipps 
 forever in bed
waiting for heat
luring black cat
Tristana into trust
by Mother Goose 
      Hey, diddle, diddle!    The cat and the fiddle,The cow jumped over the moon;    The little dog laughed    To see such sport,And the dish ran away with the spoon.
by Emily Dickinson 
 The Bone that has no Marrow,
What Ultimate for that?
It is not fit for Table
For Beggar or for Cat.

A Bone has obligations --
A Being has the same --
A Marrowless Assembly
Is culpabler than shame.

But how shall finished Creatures
A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus' Phantom
Confronting us again!
by William Carlos (WCW) Williams 
 It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold.
by Weldon Kees 
 When the coal
Gave out, we began
Burning the books, one by one;
First the set
Of Bulwer-Lytton
And then the Walter Scott.
They gave a lot of warmth.
Toward the end, in
February, flames
Consumed the Greek
Tragedians and Baudelaire,
Proust, Robert Burton
And the Po-Chu-i. Ice
Thickened on the sills.
More for the sake of the cat,
We said, than for ourselves,
Who huddled, shivering,
Against the stove
All winter long.
by Vasko Popa 
 Don't box down to the little box
Which supposedly contains everything
Your star and all other stars

Empty yourself
In her emptiness

Take two nails out of her
And give them to the owners
To eat

Make a hold in her middle
And stick on your clapper

Fill her with blueprints
And the skin of her craftsmen
And trample on her with both feet

Tie her to a cat's tail
And chase the cat

Don't bow down to the little box
If you do
You'll never straighten yourself out again
by Sylvia Plath 
 Unlucky the hero born
In this province of the stuck record
Where the most watchful cooks go jobless
And the mayor's rôtisserie turns
Round of its own accord.

There's no career in the venture
Of riding against the lizard,
Himself withered these latter-days
To leaf-size from lack of action:
History's beaten the hazard.

The last crone got burnt up
More than eight decades back
With the love-hot herb, the talking cat,
But the children are better for it,
The cow milks cream an inch thick.
by Louise Gluck 
 waiting for death
like a cat
that will jump on the
bed

I am so very sorry for
my wife

she will see this
stiff
white 
body
shake it once, then
maybe
again

"Hank!"

Hank won't
answer.

it's not my death that
worries me, it's my wife
left with this
pile of
nothing.

I want to
let her know 
though
that all the nights
sleeping
beside her

even the useless
arguments
were things
ever splendid

and the hard 
words
I ever feared to 
say 
can now be 
said:

I love
you.
A Cat  Create an image from this poem
by Edward Thomas 
 She had a name among the children;
But no one loved though someone owned
Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime
And had her kittens duly drowned.

In Spring, nevertheless, this cat
Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales,
And birds of bright voice and plume and flight,
As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails.

I loathed and hated her for this;
One speckle on a thrush’s breast
Was worth a million such; and yet
She lived long, till God gave her rest.
by Emily Dickinson 
 Papa above!
Regard a Mouse
O'erpowered by the Cat!
Reserve within thy kingdom
A "Mansion" for the Rat!

Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day
While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel solemnly away!
by Mother Goose 
"Pussy-cat, pussy-cat,    Where have you been?""I've been to London    To look at the Queen.""Pussy-cat, pussy-cat,    What did you there?""I frightened a little mouse    Under the chair."

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry