Pet sounds

In Competition No. 2499 you were invited to submit a poem eulogising a pet.
It was not only Dr Johnson’s Hodge who inspired this assignment; credit, too, goes to Jeoffry, immortalised by Christopher Smart in ‘For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry’ from ‘Jubilate Agno’: ‘…For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature./ For he is tenacious of his point./ For he is a misture of gravity and waggery./…’
A rather more unusual pet, belonging to the bohemian poet Gérard de Nerval, was brought to life by Bill Greenwell. Nerval apparently took his crustacean chum for walks in Paris fastened to a piece of blue ribbon, and regarded lobsters as perfect pet material: ‘peaceful, serious creatures, who know the secrets of the sea, and don’t bark’.
The other prizewinners printed below get £25, with the extra fiver going to William Danes-Volkov.

For a unicellular brute
My amoeba
Is rather cute.
His very perfection
Masks lack of affection
But sense of direction
Is not his strong suit.

I bought him a collar and lead
My amoeba:
Ordered in tweed
From Fowlers of Preston
A coat with a crest on.
With that and his vest on
Our ‘walk’ can proceed.
William Danes-Volkov

I have a fine pet piranha
And she is called Matilda.
I named her after my dear wife,
Shortly before I killed her.

I love my pet piranha,
And make efforts to please her.
I’ve fed her most of my late wife,
Whom I kept in the freezer.

I’m convinced my pet piranha
Understands each word I say,
Though one must be alert to keep
Fingers out of the way.

God bless my pet piranha,
Who blows me fish-like kisses
Whenever I feed her tasty morsels
Of my departed Mrs.
Brian Murdoch

My sublime, exoskeletal pal,
On a ribbon the colour of sky,
My name is Gérard de Nerval,
And I love you, but hardly know why.

It could be your claws, or antennae
Which cause me such passionate pain,
Or your manner, so secretive, when I
Take walks with you down by the Seine.
Perhaps it’s because you don’t bark
That I give you my mad admiration,
On a drag round a trottoir or parc,
My subtle and trusty crustacean.

You dream of the peaceable sea,
Non-violent, no submarine mobster:
Cock a snook at the bourgeois with me,
My snapper, my loveable lobster.
Bill