A Curse

This is my curse

On the plump slinky slob of a Persian cat

That has moved in next door –

With never a rat

To trouble the neighbourhood. True,

Those collared doves that rehearse

Interminably their rebarbative coo

Are gone now, but before,

There were thrushes to sing, and a redbreast,

And vesperal blackbirds, and still

Quite often the terse

Repeated shrill

Of a blue-tit on guard near his boxed nest.

No more.

With no sound

But a car-alarm going off,

A shout, a beer-can crunched on the ground

And the flop of a flabby cat on my glass roof,

There is desolation in this urban place

And the neighbours, I should imagine, call it peace.