A Verse if you will:
Entitled: Shall I Compare Thee to Tina Buffet?
By Mowgli the Melancholy, Blanket Philosopher and gentle paw bard of the sunless corner at the back of the bedroom, under the wardrobe.
Shall I compare thee to a tuna buffet?
Thou art more tasty and more intemperate
Rough winds do shake the curtain pole of day,
And mother’s gait hath all too long a wait;
Sometime too slow the can of tuna brines,
And often is his delicious water skimm’d;
And in fair it would be better bottled by Heinz,
By chance to make my beloved bowl full brimmed;
But thy B6 goodness shall not fade,
Nor lose potassium of that fare thou host
Nor shall trout brag thou worthiness unpaid,
When in eternal life you are the most:
So long as cats can breathe or mices can see,
So long lives tuna, and this gives life to me.
From The Journal of the Velveteen Blanket
Dear Bastet, my only true friend and ador’d idol,
This morning as I pondered the very nature of our, by our of course I mean, MY existence, I was struck by a thought a rather inconveniencing mewsing if I might say, disturbing revelation. I stared long after it struck – hypnotized as if by some magic laser, into the water bowl and saw not in it my pristine face, but a betrayal.
The kind of devastating treachery that occurs when the tuna can is opened…Oh such a glorious symphony. But alas it has not been open for me. No. It has been opened for some other quite futile endeavour. Mother claims salad. I rather believe she is Brutus and her cruelty knows no bounds.
If I weren’t so warm in this rather delightful sunspot I would be somewhat inclined to call the RSPCA myself.
And so, there is little else for me to do . I brood as once must in such situations. I sulk. I lick a forbidden napkin if the want takes.
Then I recline dramatically upon my blanket throne,
as is my divine right as the ruler of the velvet dominion. And I fall into a fitful sleep, dreaming alas of the tuna I can only imagine.
Yours pawingly,
Purrs, existential despair, and dramatic stares,
– Mowgli, Servant of No One (Except Myself)
Ps
They who deny me tuna, deny the sun itself. And also, may they get a hairball in their slippers.
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