‘Kaput to be a Cat’ / ‘Kaput to be a Rat’ (2 Poems)

Summary

KAPUT TO BE A CAT

I am a black cat, kept as a rat-catcher,

Supposed to eat small rats and mouse,

But of the giant rats I catch, I am robbed

By my duena and her dueno, they

Loot me off my blunder, they plunder,

Eating off my dear sweat like panjandrums,

Imagine I often get sick, but they give no care,

I sneeze and mew in the chilly darkness, having

Been curtly scolded for my fecal stuff on the old couch,

Most of them use me as voodoo stuff, secret arts,

They night-run with me as their work device

For their outrageous venture in the wee of hour of the night,

They want to mew out sound of terror into the hearts

And black peace of the unlighted innocent sleepers,

Uff; I tell you; you are kaput to be a cat

In a place called rural Africa!

KAPUT TO BE A RAT

Once upon a time in the city of Omurate

In the southern part of Ethiopia

On Ethiopian boundary with Kenya

Hailed two prosperous animal families

Living side by side as good neighbours

In glory and pomp of riches

Each was ostensibly rich

And rambunctious in social styles

They were the families of a rat family

And a cat family; the city belonged to them

They all enjoyed stocks of desert scorpions

From the savanna desert of Northern Kenya,

The families also enjoyed to feed on desert locusts

On which they regularly fed without food based squabbles

Locust joust flew in by themselves

From Lowarang to the city of Omurate

Though cat family enjoyed an extra dish

Puff adder flesh, the steak of the puff adder muscle

Were cheaply available in plenty at the lakeshore,

The Lakeshores of Lake Turkana

Where river Oromo enters into Lake Turkana

So the cat was happy and relaxed

Hence it rarely mewed,

Neighbours never heard its mewing sound

The rat enjoyed plenty of milk with no strain

Easily gotten from the rustled cattle

by the Merilee; a warrior tribe in Omurate.