The Alley Cat Poem by Mary Champion

Sinuously slinking through the tangled lanes,
scraggy alley cat begins his nightly hunt.
Silent as a shadow see him poised to leap,
gracefully gliding from a fence to waiting wall.
Solitary alley cat - a cat who knows
these hunting grounds where he patrols alone.

The alley cat was born to walk his path alone,
through the friendless nights he prowls the local lanes.
Wherever his prey's lurking he always knows -
self-reliant alley cat - the master of the hunt.
Sliding like a ghost along the garden wall,
almost like he's weightless in that gliding leap.

As he scents a skulking mouse his hopes will leap,
he is focussing on that and that alone.
Patiently he waits beside the crumbling wall
that runs along these age-old country lanes.
Will he make a killing on this daring hunt?
He'll wait and watch ‘til time tells all it knows.

But instinct saves this mouse - somehow he knows,
darting round the back he avoids the lethal leap.
Ruefully the alley cat resumes his eager hunt,
survival in his hands, trusts in himself alone.
Sneaking like a thief up and down the darkened lanes,
across the fence and balancing along the wall.

 
Steady as a rock he pauses on the wall,
Surveying his domain, whose mysteries he knows.
Here among the alleys and winding, wending lanes,
He never fears the fall-out of a careless leap.
See the hungry alley cat who always walks alone,
ruthlessly, relentlessly resuming the hunt.

Will he go home hungry from a disappointing hunt?
He can sense another victim near a broken, mossy wall -
an unsuspecting rodent sneaks through the night alone.
This time the cat is certain, this time he simply knows.
He springs to pin his target in a flashing leap.
Another murder victim in the darkness of the lanes.

Feasting all alone on the bounty of his hunt,
then back along the lanes he clears the final wall;
safe within the home he knows, with one last limber leap