Chaz: Cat of Destiny, a poem by Peter Nicholls

My Boss sent me this poem after receiving it from a friend of his, Peter Nicholls. After I read it, I contacted the author, and asked if I could post it here, because reading it, well, truth can hit you like that sometimes. I've never read anything that so completely summed up not only what it is to love a Bengal, but what a Bengal IS, and also, what a Bengal might feel like.

If I had it in me to be as fine a poet as Mr Nicholls, I would have written this. Every word is perfect.

The Blog today is dedicated to Bengal Reilly (RIP) and to anyone who has ever lived with and loved, or lost, a Bengal Cat.

I am grateful to Mr Peter Nicholls for letting me post it, and to Kimm Schroeder for the photos of the Bengals who live with me, Magic, Venus and Mim.



Chaz: Cat of Destiny

It’s not his fault
That brutality is the imperative
Pulsing in his blood.
He’s just a cat, not even very big.
Perhaps it seemed a good idea at the time,
Refreshing the essence of cattishness
By backbreeding with the feral
Leopard Cat of the subcontinent.
Fucking cat breeders playing God.

The irony is that it worked.
Bengal cats, as they are known,
Are cleverer than other cats
(By maybe 100%),
Loyal and true
And loving too.

If one or both our dogs
Each one eight times his weight
Gets rough with him
Chaz smartly boxes their ears.
There’s brave for you.

Chaz has a proud ideal of service
And leaves dead rats as gifts upon the floor,
And for lagniappe
Sprays bitter smelling urine upon my sister’s computer.

Veterinarian and furniture replacement bills
In a bad year cost more than five thousand dollars,
The same ballpark, say, as paying the bill
For sending a child to Scotch College.


It’s Nature not Nurture
That made Chaz destructive and nearly broke him
Many times:
Sprained limbs, a broken pelvis, bite wounds everywhere,
Ageing unhappy pugilist,
He doesn’t understand
Why he’s this way.
Fucking cat breeders playing God.

When he likes me he sits upon my knee
And when he loves me,
He sinks his teeth into my arm.

God knows, males have a record of violence,
But it’s deeper than that:
His balls have been cut off,
He’s been injected with enough female hormones
To grow tits on an elephant.
He’s still aggressive, territorial
And punitive
And gets beaten up by the neighbour’s tom,
Twice his size, half his age,
On a weekly basis.

Weary and staggering he still won’t leave The Fight Club,
Cannot ever retire.


He used to belong to my dear sister,
Who, in a nursing home with a broken mind,
Is living in a whirlwind of amnesias
Forgetting nearly everything.
She still asks after Chaz every time she sees us.

To understand the place of cats like Chaz
Upon the spectrum of Free Will to Destiny,
From pastoral to film noir,
I might turn to fiction-makers for children
Who often see these things with clarity.

Take George Miller’s film Babe
Pig in the City.
In this, the Christ-Like pig
Saves a pit bull dog from drowning,
And makes him a disciple. The dog says:
“I have a professional obligation
To be malicious.” Pig:
“Then you should change jobs.”
Dog: “No I can’t, it’s in the blood you see,
We were once warriors…a murderous shadow
Lies hard across my soul.”

The best portrait of Chaz is in a kids’ book
By my friend Diana, who never met him.
In The Lives of Christopher Chant the Temple Cat
Is brought to Earth, and terrifies all he meets
Both good and bad. He saves the universe.
His characteristic speech is
A bell-like Wong! Wong!


And Chaz? He knows his mind’s not right.
If he could do a self analysis
And synopsize his life, his usual cry of Wong
Both querulous and questioning would be changed
To Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Fucking cat breeders playing God.
If it comes to that:
Fucking God.

By Peter Nicholls