Of parting day ------
The ploughman homeward plods
His weary way -----
(Sorry Thomas Gray)
I can easily recite
With polished, English accent
But when I try to write
Inspiration is totally absent
World champion poetic parrot
But I've always felt on the outside
Feathers green and the color of carrot
But no work to my name they ascribe
None of this pretty polly stuff
I am a sophisticated bird
Don't sit on one-legged shoulders
I can pronounce any word
It takes lots of patience and practice
For humans to teach poems to me
I still say its quite an achievement
When my brain's the size of a pea
I want a desk and a pen and a notebook
A computer, my books on my shelf
All I get is to perch on this coat hook
Or locked in my cage by myself
Infinite typing monkeys its said
Could produce Shakespeare's work
Only parrots and men can recite it
And my gift is, they say, just a quirk
For bard-birds to do all the typing
Would take for one page a whole week
You can just about manage one key at a time
When all you can use is your beak.
WRM (2002)
