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)
1 comment:
A mina talent.
Having heard of the vocal talents of the mina bird,
We were expecting a steady torrent of words,
But a stunning silence was all we heard,
With no passerine delivery as we waited .. for a syllable, a vowel,
Alas, not so much as a cheep emerged from the silent fowl.
We sat and prompted, repeating at length,
The accepted bird vocabulary, until we lost strength
Of will to continue and exhausted gave in;
At which point the bird with considerable flair,
Opened its bill, and taking in air,
Puffed out its chest; its feathers expanded,
And with no trepidation ,asked where it had landed.
Taken aback by this direct inquisition,
I answered YO26 with precision,
But further replied, if he wanted to know,
Why had he been so terribly slow, to enquire.
He said he had waited the facts to acquire ,hoping we would eventually tire;
While he, remained uncertain as to whether,
He had been sold to owners less bright than a feather,
Unable to string a simple sentence together,
So far below his own mental capabilities,
Yet not wanting to offend their sensitivities,
Hoping if all their verbal advances he spurned,
That in desperation he would be returned,
To the intellectual hothouse of the petstore,
With the PhD parrot and the MBA Macaw,
For an engrossing discussion, the odd sunflower seed,
Debating carbon footprints, perhaps enjoying a little weed,
Or merely passing the time of day,
Hoping that none would be taken away,
To deplete the intelligence quotient of this s-trident group,
Allowing them to remain, as always cock-a-hoop. j
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