"pantry" poems
Thank you ~
for a life not to trade
blessings, in spades
tight spaces
behind laundry doors
packed closets
and open drawers
gator tails, tarnished brass
cracks in kitchen sliding glass
wet towels, withering plants
foundation filled
with carpenter ants
buckets piled with
shoes and tags
village clothes
and saddlebags
peeling paint
and broken walls
****** seats
in bathroom stalls
clogged pantry
frigid rooms
table scribe
and carbon fumes
comfort capsules
empty tanks
broken limbs
from children’s pranks
**** finger
double tongue
long goodbyes
and sidewalk dung
cluster flies
chavie’ clique
accompanying
the hypocrite
cracked back
and hidden smiles
chalk on board
with mr miles
atomic wedgies
closing doors
wrotten eggs
and open sores
jaw jack
nasty folk
dinner calls
for pig in poke
penny pinchers
double dip
yellow mouth
and silver tip
brown nosers
thick red tape
paper cuts
and pimple nape
gallivants
so out of norm
the joy of life…
in basic form
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 2:03 PM UTC
Yogurt.
"I begin the day buying yogurt in a small favorite grocery store."
Not pizza, nor gatorade.
Bananas
although they are imported from afar and grown in monocultures.
Attract fruit flies in August.
Peaches
locally grown with rainwater. I ate all the farmer's peaches alone
stacking them by the railroad tracks.
Water --
rainwater, tap water, distilled water, carbonated water, spring water --
deep gulps, infinite sips.
Nuts
in moderation, or not, unsalted, raw, replacing chips. His bowl
of filberts, almonds, walnuts quiet weekday mornings.
Edible plant parts --
roots, leaves, stems, flowers, fruit, buds. In olive oil
or butter.
Potatoes --
look online how best to prepare. Baked or fried. With a little
fish or meat.
Tea and honey,
play and prayer. Swimming and running,
talking quietly.
Bread?
Bread's possible as the Bible. Each is liable
to bloat us.
Wine and dandelions.
Dandelion wine's Ray Bradbury's story. Cans in a pantry, books on a
shelf
to the end of time.
Pasta
we used to call spaghetti, never noodles. I wonder if I can remember
how to make
grandma's sauce.
Tomatoes --
cherry, grape. Grab God's eye
going by.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 11:34 AM UTC
were so fat,
maybe,
our gravitational pull,
will make someone orbit around us,
and fall in love with us,
because who could love us,
If we don't even love us,
So just maybe,
Someone will orbit around us,
and not the pantry's continents,
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
there are some who want a thinner waist
and others who just don't like the taste
of food they feel they do not deserve
some eat cake with their eyes
while others are busy planning their demise
one wants to see bones, another, headstones
one could love themselves if they were just 40 pounds thinner
"maybe i'll love myself if i just skip dinner"
the other has no appetite, a battle with calories she does not fight
a battle, rather, with herself
to **** herself or stay in living hell
too preoccupied to care what is on the pantry shelf
there are some who want a thinner waist
and others who just don't like the taste
of food they feel they do not deserve
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 11:12 PM UTC
I'm having tea with Life,
And his band of Disappointments.
They dine at my expense,
And they're a hungry bunch of guests.
Tea turned into Supper,
Where the Disappointments drank
My finest wine,
And Life wiped his cruel mouth
On my tablecloth.
You can't have supper without dessert,
So they ate up more of my
Food for thought.
And if you stay for dessert,
You may as well spend the night.
So they did
And burgled my pantry of hopes
For a midnight snack.
One night was lovely,
So Life cackled, "Why not stay two?"
And two turned to a week,
And a week turned into
My sickeningly merry guests
Moving into my dreams,
And inviting in Doubt,
To live with them too,
And of course
Pay no rent.
So I watch my chaotic household
Of a skull,
Where Life has made himself at home
And brought all of his friends.
I stare dully at my ruined
Dining room of thought,
Which they have dominated.
And look wearily for a spare idea
In my raided cupboards.
I've never been one
To evict friends,
So I suppose they're here to stay.
But learn a lesson from me,
And don't ever
Have Life over for tea.
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 1:38 AM UTC
As I sit here, at the dining room table and stare over decaf coffee at the screen on my Mac
my eyes are drawn, once and awhile, to the picture sitting on the buffet in the butler's pantry.
Before we continue you should know that "butler's pantry" in this case
means the "third bedroom" that we saw in the listing on Realtor dot com before we bought the house and that,
in the usual real estate-ese, is an optimistic label at best.
But I was talking about the picture.
The picture sits, slightly askew, in a carved wooden bowl given to us by my wife's boss
as a housewarming present.
It, the bowl I mean, came with salad tongs or forks,
depending on what it is that you call them,
made of water buffalo horn.
They sit in the bowl too and,
although she'd never admit it,
I know that the thought of serving salad with water buffalo horn salad forks...
lets just say.....
doesn't appeal to my wife.
Right, the picture....
It sits in on the buffet,
in the carved wooden bowl,
next to another wood bowl.
This one full of carved wood fruits and vegetables,
which evidently, includes sugar cane.
When my wife's dad moved from his house to an assisted living facility
the kids, my wife, her brother and sister, took turns going down to help him move.
My wife was the last and dad insisted that
someone
"had" to take the fruit.
But, the picture....
It, and the wooden bowls full of fruit and unused salad forks,
are surrounded by both faux and real glassware
and placemats
which all sit perched
on the top of the buffet as precariously as refugees
and all of their belongings
on the deck and roof of an overloaded fishing boat
chugging from their homeland
to some place that is hopefully better.
The picture...
It was painted by my father-in-law and,
of all the others we have in the house,
is one of my favorites.
It sits on the buffet, askew in the carved wooden bowl with the horn salad forks,
amid polycarbonate and glass drink ware,
and placemats,
unframed for some reason.
All of his other works came framed
but this is one he did not...
and did I mention that it is one of my favorites?
I like his choices of frames on all of the other pictures we have,
but this is just canvas, stretched over a frame,
sitting in that carved African wooden bowl
with those salad forks made from water buffalo horn
on the buffet next to the other wood bowl full of wooden fruits and vegetables,
and wooden sugar cane,
in the butler's pantry.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 9:51 AM UTC
Nine years and still
we cradle our grief
carefully close,
like groceries
in paper bags.
Eventually the milk
will make its way
into the refrigerator;
the canned goods
will find their home
on pantry shelves.
Most things find
their proper place.
Eventually the hummingbirds
will ricochet against scorched air,
their delicate beaks stabbing
like needles into the feeder filled
with red nectar on the back porch.
Eventually our child
will make her way
back to us. Perhaps.
But I’ve heard
that shooting
****** feels
like being
buried under
an avalanche
of cotton *****
For now it’s another
week, another month,
another trip to Safeway.
We drive home and wonder
why it is always snowing.
Behind a curtain of snow,
brake lights pulse, turning
the color of cotton candy,
dissolving into ghosts.
And with each turn,
the groceries shift
in the seat behind us.
From the spot where
our daughter used to sit,
there is a rustling sound—
a murmur of words
crossed off yet another list,
a language we’ve budgeted
for but cannot afford to hear.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 10:04 AM UTC
i don't really know what it feels like to be in love but i think the clouds look nice about an hour before sunset when it seems like everything is submerged underneath a blanket of cotton
or maybe in the morning, when the sky is so blue but the clouds are so sad and so soft like the froth that sits on top of my soda in the summertime when its hot
or right before a sunset when the clouds are dripping gold and the sky seems to soak up all of their honey, honey like the bottles tucked away in the pantry, honey like the eyes of the spiral-haired boy living across the street
and i sit and watch how beautiful the sky is from the sweet-smelling sheets of my bed or the lonely window in my classroom or the passenger seat of my father's car and think of how beautiful it must be to be in love
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 8:13 AM UTC
Fat;
Bubbly lipids gathering and stacking in a fashioned order.
Fat;
It was not so "fashionista" when she gained and gained.
Skinny;
She was lost, had no where to run but to the pantry.
Skinny;
Bones showing, skin glimmering in the sunlight.
Fat;
Sticking to her bones as paper sticks to glue.
Fat;
Poking and Prodding at the blubbery material that sits upon her femurs.
Unhappy;
She will always be.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 2:18 AM UTC
With a body temperature
Below 96 degrees Fahrenheit,
Wrapping yourself in bed sheets
As translucent as your skin
Seems so nice but
Every minute you spend
Shivering is more calories burned,
So you try to ignore it
Or maybe you do two hundred more crunches
Because being athletic is healthy,
Right?
You open the pantry only to
deny yourself sustenance because you
are unworthy of
These simple pleasures, and
You almost let yourself
Eat an apple but
When you remember how
Good that girl in
the thinspo you have
Hidden on your phone looks,
You stop.
You flinch when your mother
Calls your skin porcelain,
Because that word means
You failed to restrain yourself
And you have always been taught to
Resist temptation, and
This is the ultimate test.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 2:07 PM UTC
There is a snack size container of peanut butter sitting in the pantry
And I'm sitting across the room but I can feel it's weight as acutely as my own
I checked the package three times, hoping the numbers would change when i returned
282
282
282 calories
I'm having a panic attack over a snack because the one thing I crave more than anything else in the world is the sticky, nutty taste of JIF brand peanut butter of which I am undeserving
My grandmother loved peanut butter
So much that they had to hide it from her if they wanted any hope of a satisfactory sandwich
My mom hid food too
Stole it like kiss after kiss
Sneaking cookies from the houses where she babysat
Getting crumbs on her swelling chest in the dark embrace of her teenage bedroom
A buffet for one
And now I'm in my grandmothers house
Hoping that there's peanut butter in heaven
Because here there's just photographs and the lingering scent of her Chanel number 5 perfume
Like mother, like daughter, like granddaughter they say
You can trace my family line as easily as the stretch marks that litter our bodies
But I am breaking the cycle by falling into my own
I have learned that hunger pangs are better than the climbing figures on the scale
So I lift a glass of water to my lips
And I leave the peanut butter in the pantry so no one will ever have to hide food from me
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
Vulnerable is what I am
When I let the real me outside
It's not safe, sometimes, to be so carefree
Should I risk hurt, or play safe and hide?
But people who love me keep asking me
To open my heart up to them
I don't know why that's so uncomfortable
I guess vulnerable is not what I am
The few times I've worn my heart on my sleeve
My words never came out right
So I've practiced being less vulnerable
And kept my real thoughts out of sight
People keep saying to use more words
But I fear I'll be misunderstood
Maybe I won't express myself right
Or I'll say way more than I should
Words, I've found, are containers for thoughts
I don't know why I sit here and hoard them
When I store them unspoken, my thoughts sit unused
Unshared—a container unopened
It's a little like having a pantry of food
And keeping it all to myself
Food's meant to be shared, and if it is not
It helps no one—just rots on the shelf
And that's how it is with my words kept inside
If love doesn't share them some way
My thoughts stored inside these containers called words
Can spoil and turn bitter someday
I used to complain that people didn't understand me
And for that I would silently resent them
But the silence, I now see, is of my own making—
If they don't know me, it's because I haven't let them
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
My Grandmother's Hands
My Grandmother's hands told many tales
Of scrubbing steps and broken nails
Hand-washing clothes in enamel sink
Red football socks turned white towels pink
When not baking cakes at the old gas stove
Rag-rugs with old scraps of material she wove
Pantry shelves filled with powdered egg
Homemade rice pudding sprinkled with nutmeg
Sea-coal burning on an open coal fire
Bread on a toasting fork burning like a pyre
Grandma plumping up pillows from beneath granda’s head
Applying ointment to sores caused by being confined to bed
Hours spent at auctions bidding with her hand
Buying an incomplete bed wasn't what she planned
Back home in time for tea, crumpets and homemade strawberry jam,
I can still recall the smell of it, bubbling in the pan
Switching tv channels with a flick of her wrist
That’s how we did it back then, when remotes did not exist
Working hard all of her life, meeting everyone's demands
Every line and wrinkle told a story
On my Grandmother's hands
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 11:09 AM UTC
There is a Mouse in this House.
Insatiable,
He keeps me up at night,
thin fine claws on metal stove tops,
whispering to the birds what a fool he's made of me,
because I couldn't make the fibers of my home work with me.
There is a Mouse in this House,
Immortal,
I've fished him drowned out of drains,
fed him bleach on silver trays,
listened to him choke in air vents,
his chestnut jacket perpetually in the corners of my eye,
leaving reminders in my cereal,
this rodent he refuses to die.
There is a Mouse in this House,
Intangible,
he is not slipping through my fingers he's dancing on them,
quick petite feet tapping on my counters,
fleet and fast like smoke,
I've seen him seep through a clenched fist and still escape with wedding bands,
There is a Mouse in this House.
Impish,
he waits 'till I'm alone to play his music,
the crack and chew,
too early with the morning dew,
he will not play his song for you, it'd be too easy to be seen.
There is a Mouse in this House,
primeval,
he's been waiting,
mapped the walls and painted my flaws,
tactician skilled and iron willed,
this beast knows war far more than my militia mind was ready for,
plotting out insurgencies for restless and anxieties,
There is a Mouse in this House,
emaciated,
what's his is his,
what's mine is his,
there is no sacred to things with tails.
clearing out my pantry,
his jaws now tasting for my sanity,
finished with the:
Rye,
White,
and Sourdough,
he's fixed his tongue on sweat breads,
scuttling with unnatural flow,
There is a Mouse in this House.
Charming,
too handsome a creature to ever be singed,
he peddles on the burners simply too strut,
scampering through flames to test his luck,
There is a Mouse in this House,
Insomniac,
from now until each evening hour,
his paws touch turns time sour.
Ivory teeth clanging out a new ink-printed deed,
he owns the tenant and never even had to rent it,
There is a Mouse in this House,
arrogant,
too self-assured and clever,
cunning, devilish a creature he may be,
but he has yet to get a load of me,
holed away within his den,
his first mistake was not letting me win,
setting aria's on fly's wings to declare his victory,
this furry phantasm is all too aware of what he did to me.
There is a Mouse in This House,
sleeper,
I'm plotting my comeback,
sure-footed,
slow breathes,
and savage hands,
I'm ready,
silent and steady;
this beautiful monstrous mouse had best prepare for battle.
There is a Mouse in this House.
But it's my House.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
today i will look for
chocolate and flowers
and find a pound of
belgian dark in my
pantry, and wilted
tulips on the counter.
i will hand write a
poem because it's
just so much better
on paper, and i will
serenade my darling
with bright eyes
on a scholastic field
after the last bell rings,
for at last i can stop
musing on possibilities
and begin to dwell
on solidity.
today i will bring you
a rose, for the petals
and lines and worn
down world-weary
ravines contained
in you; i will bring
you sweet darkness
in a plastic wrapping
for all the sugar laced
in with your hair and
irises, and despite your
fire and your heritage,
i will leave out the heat
of sacred mayan ritual
peppers because together
we'll be warm enough.
finally, i will lean
down close to you and
whisper what i have
not whispered for a
million seconds or more,
because i just haven't
had the opportunity:
Ya llegué, mi querida.
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 2:55 PM UTC
In my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign --
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.
I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the three flights of the house
with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode
the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares
like strange giant's teeth
on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there.
Where did you go?
45 Mercy Street,
with great-grandmother
kneeling in her whale-bone corset
and praying gently but fiercely
to the wash basin,
at five A.M.
at noon
dozing in her wiggy rocker,
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry,
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid,
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower
on her forehead to cover the curl
of when she was good and when she was...
And where she was begat
and in a generation
the third she will beget,
me,
with the stranger's seed blooming
into the flower called Horrid.
I walk in a yellow dress
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs
for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead
and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids
****** up like pollen by the bee in me
and a husband
who has wiped off his eyes
in order not to see my inside out
and I am walking and looking
and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.
Pull the shades down --
I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate
who wants to own the past
that went out on a dead ship
and left me only with paper?
Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth
between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one
and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook
into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off
and slam into the cement wall
of the clumsy calendar
I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up
notebooks.
3.6k
Baucis and Philemon,
Elderly souls, never empty of
Love,
Opened their doors for two strangers,
Whom
Unbeknownst to them, originated from
Above.
Zues and Hermes, cloaked in the robes of the
Poor,
Were turned away from every household,
Until they rapped on Baucis and Philemon's
Door.
"Come in, come in, shed your cloaks, and warm your hands,
Baucis,
Go!
Use our last loaves, grab the roast, the ham!"
Never mind their
Poverty
Never mind their
Nearly empty
Pantry and Cupboards
Baucis and Philemon possessed the rarest trait,
One the God's most
Coveted.
And while the two strangers ate their foods, and consumed their
Wine,
Baucis noted their cups never lowered beneathe the
Brim Line.
"God's... Divine!"
Cried the two elderly
Lovers.
"Follow us up the hill, Baucis, Philemon,
Do not look back as you climb,
Only to each other."
The two followed the Gods, still cloaked in the garb of strangers,
Never looking back at their village
Below.
Until, reaching the top, and turning back, their eyes didn't fall back upon their
Home.
Zues had called forth a flood, sent to destroy the once ungrateful
Village,
But where Baucis and Philemons cottage once lay,
A beautiful temple had risen from the filthy
Sullage.
Their wish to take care of the temple was swiftly
Granted,
As was their second wish, one that was almost
Demanded.
"I must die, as soon as my love does, I can't ever be without her."
The rest of their lives were spent glorifying the Gods for their kindness and love,
And when the time came for them to take their last
Breath,
Squeezed hands and warm souls crossed the River Styx,
And their broken and withered bodies were
Left.
The wrinkles on their
Skin,
Were made brown, and beautiful
Again
As their flesh turned to bark, and their hair to
Leaves,
The two elderly lovers, became intertwining
Trees.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 1:36 PM UTC
You and I could be lichen.
You'd be algae
and I fungus.
E plural unis.
I would envelop you,
not to smoother,
but to romance, house, protect.
You would photosynthisize the sun
filling our pantry shelves.
Oh, what fun we could have
if we were a lichen.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
This morning
I went to the kitchen
Opened the pantry
Found my elephant missing
Along with my favorite coffee mug
And my Better Homes and Gardens subscription
At first of course
I thought of the worst
Elephantnapped
Is what came to mind
And me right here
Playing into my fears
That's the end
Of that friend of mine
But then I thought of the refrigerator
Where I know he goes to cool down and relax
And that's where he was
Between the yogurt and mustard
Lounge chair, second shelf in the back
With magazine and coffee mug in hand
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 5:03 PM UTC
I was there
Beneath it all
Stubbing my nose
Catching my eyes
On the most soulful of gifts
There was a promenade
Then music
A chef in a tall white hat
Shouting at the top of his lungs
As cracked eggs
Desperately tried
To reimagine themselves
As whole again.
They did not wish to change.
I am a poem
And I am nothing
I am a man
And I am nothing
I am a before
Yet to embark
On an after
Could this be it?
I think of
What could have been
If I had done this
If I had done that
And switch
Paralyzed.
The horizon
Fades at dusk
And is reimagined
At dawn
How I wish
I were content
To be ok
With such a simple
Routine
Progress
Achievements
Recognition
Advancement
Awards
Realization
The ***** turns to tighten
To hold
Only to rust
Be forgotten
Put in the back of the pantry
Read from afar
The days of the sun
Are over
Darknesses lengths
Are upon us
Taste of the hubris of the moon
Its position is fixed
Such a fact, such a reserved space
Where will the moon go
But anywhere
But here?
And of us?
Where will our bones go?
Our me minds?
Our fleeting psyche?
The I is none other
But the billionth petal
Of a flaming sunflower
In a field
Surrounded by the identical
Taste ash
Mixed with honey
As the buzz of the bees
Fade.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 2:25 AM UTC
where is that Dettol cream
to soothe these burns
tearing up my fragile skin
can’t handle these
children in conversations,
at the dinner table, like Pinot Noir
a stain on the embroidery,
what has happened to the Panadol
on the twelfth shelf of the walk in pantry
we’re all going to throw a *****
it’s all plasters, plastercine
playdough, dresses with cheap
cliché’ commercial slogans -
such a numb drum melody,
the top shelf
of every pantry is a *****
might as well lend a little
helping hand, sponsor a child
charity
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 2:59 PM UTC
A slice of toast,
burning on the grill.
A ghostly face,
the window pane,
terror running through the brain.
A shadow that was moving,
now is still.
Darkness hoovering the light,
and all that shun on Blackrose Hill.
Floorboards, creaking,
then they're not...............
Hiding in the pantry,
with a stomach tied in knots,
Churning, like butter in a ***
That old house on Blackrose Hill,
years since left to rot.
That old house on Blackrose Hill,
that old empty cot.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC
I am the backs of everything,
bring me out
only in your holiest
of holy moments.
Consistent like middle eastern conflict.
The corner of the pantry holding the infinite consumer
The pound of the waterfall
slow, slow.
This grace is sick like
bringing some dark of disease to
every place God gave me
to escape to.
The Midas of somber sad
begs them all not to come any closer.
Curled up to process, process, its such.
Each cry stops the tracks flat
everyone please remember to remember that you’re forgetting.
and remember too
when you’ve read enough to put the gun in your mouth,
to stop reading.
Dec 2, 2011
Dec 2, 2011 at 9:14 PM UTC
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple
of cats.
As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope
walkers and acrobats
They had extensive reputation. They made their home in
Victoria Grove—
That was merely their centre of operation, for they were
incurably given to rove.
They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston
Place and in Kensington Square—
They had really a little more reputation than a couple of
cats can very well bear.
If the area window was found ajar
And the basement looked like a field of war,
If a tile or two came loose on the roof,
Which presently ceased to be waterproof,
If the drawers were pulled out from the bedroom chests,
And you couldn’t find one of your winter vests,
Or after supper one of the girls
Suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls:
Then the family would say: “It’s that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer!”— And most of the time
they left it at that.
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a very unusual gift of the
gab.
They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and
remarkably smart at smash-and-grab.
They made their home in Victoria Grove. They had no regular
occupation.
They were plausible fellows, and liked to engage a friendly
policeman in conversation.
When the family assembled for Sunday dinner,
With their minds made up that they wouldn’t get thinner
On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens,
And the cook would appear from behind the scenes
And say in a voice that was broken with sorrow:
“I’m afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow!
For the joint has gone from the oven-like that!”
Then the family would say: “It’s that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer!”— And most of the time
they left it at that.
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a wonderful way of working
together.
And some of the time you would say it was luck, and some of
the time you would say it was weather.
They would go through the house like a hurricane, and no sober
person could take his oath
Was it Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer? or could you have sworn
that it mightn’t be both?
And when you heard a dining-room smash
Or up from the pantry there came a loud crash
Or down from the library came a loud ping
From a vase which was commonly said to be Ming—
Then the family would say: “Now which was which cat?
It was Mungojerrie! AND Rumpelteazer!”— And there’s nothing
at all to be done about that!
2.8k