Hillbilly Midnight

That old hound dog he didn’t mean to rile me,
but he did rile and he cause’n me to sneeze a
lot, old Yeller did, make’n me to be allergic
and all, and so I had to lose that old hound
dog, and so my friend Flint up the road a-
ways, he done went and got me this cat--
well sir, I ain’t never done had a cat,
being that I done had dogs all my
born days, but I was a fur piece
in sadness, so I says, “Okay, I
reckon a cat is Jim Dandy,
yet’n he ain’t nothing so
much like a dog ya see,
since he sits around
like’n he’s owns
this here house."

And he don’t mind me
at all, this’n new black cat,
(Oh he be black like the night
  with’n out the moon, so’n I
  speck I should call him Midnight)
and he’n a mind to be as uppity
as cow-pie stinks a-floatin’ on up.
Oh, I tryin’ to hold him at first, but he
will have none of that, and he went a-boltin’
off my chest like that there lightning zaps his
behind, and he goes a-bellerin‘, but it ain’t no
bellerin’ I done ever heard before; no sir, it
be like that old pump handle on my well
out back all freezed up with rust and
squealin‘ like’n he be the Devil. 

(And Midnight would sit on the fence
swishing his tail, eyeing Luke as Luke
  fed the chickens, baled hay, and tended
  to the herd.  Luke was no longer plagued
    with sneeze.  Midnight eyed Luke narrowly
    with regularity.  And Luke became schooled
      in feline haughtiness, realizing at once that
      cows are cows, and sheep are sheep, and
        some are led, but one will never herd cats.)


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
4-17-16