A Cat’s tale

 The cataclysm of Catholicism

Is they did not recognize the schism

Until it was too late

and the cat had already been let

out of the bag

The Cathode ray tube made a killing

With the cats and rubes

Who searched for gold in the klondike

Where the wild cats growled up in the mountains

And spilled rivers down cathedral-sized

Chunks of quartz

Oh but a fleck here, and flick there

only constitutes a smattering of gold

But is enough to send cations screaming

Across electrode gaps in test tubes

Of the prospecting cat

This could be the catalyst he thinks to himself

Of a great change in my life

In which I become a fat cat, a millionaire

And strike it rich in the Yukon valley

But he didn't have cat in hell's chance really

Still that never stopped him dreaming

This cool cat, with the whiskers like steel

That bristle whenever someone mentions a meal

Or a plate of gold, or a mother lode

That is hidden under the hill

 

Catatonic now in the biting cold

Shivering in his steel shack

That has but one cat flap frozen shut

No chance of attack

By roving wolf packs or mountain lions

bearing teeth and swishing tails

When somewhere down in a southern state

The cattle are trailing along a lush green path

And the cat laughs, thinking of that

Then caterwauling he guffaws

And throws off his cape

The biting wind nips his nape

But he preens himself wide awake

And shakes off the sleep

 

Of all the catastrophic avalanches that could befall him now

He thinks not one bit, doesn't even wink

Instead takes a sniff of his catnip, and pip-pip, tootle-loo

He's off again into the wild blue

Yonder

The mountain peaks in wonder

He spies through cat's eyes closed as slits

To the snow in the sky

But then wide and dazzling bright in surprise

As he wanders over the old claims he has staked

The light snow fall is but falling in flakes

And the above the White river, he sees

The quartz that makes him shiver

And a thrill runs up his spine

And he is over come with joy

and catapults down the line

With his shovel and his pick

And in the hard rock he begins to dig

Deeper down and further still

Until he thinks he might need a drill

Then six feet under he reaches down

And follows the vein

That runs through the ground

Into a tiny nugget he holds in his claw

But these are but the hors d'oeuvres

Not yet the main course

Yet after only a little more time

That golden sunrise begins to shine

And his face is like a morning glow

As he is lifting up the huge mother lode

Yet behind him a shadow shifts

Is it cloudburst or another grift

Out to steal what he did not earn

Another cat burglar out to crash and burn

 

A bullet flies like a silver bird

And hits our cat with crash and purr

Cat falls flat and doesn't stir

Struck in the back by cuckoo cur

And down slinks the burglar

Into the pit, salivating like a dog

Dribbling spit, hungry for the gold

that is like a disease

And in his fervour and desire to seize

He forgets to check our cat is dead

And swift as a pigeon a pickaxe to the head

The burglar is down in the ground bleeding red

And cat with the mother lode climbs free from the grave

The hole is through his fur coat, but his organs are saved

Back on up to his shack he rolls 

Singing to the birds his cat carols

And happy as a cat who has got the cream

He retired back down where the meercats dream