Is sensitive to seismic phenomena.
Even when his own cage rattles, and the ends of his swing jigger wild and spastic,
Pembroke's black beak remains constant in its expression of wry amusement.
Pembroke does not want a cracker.
He wants your finger, or, hopefully, two.
Pembroke the pedantic parrot
Can recite "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" in Portuguese, while swaying his body from side to side like a batshit lunatic.
The only time that Pembroke goes quiet,
Is if your house catches fire in the night;
He sees Mexican dancers in the bright orange flames,
And balls of smoke become marshmallow skulls floating in the air as if they were pinatas.
Pembroke the psittacosis-ridden parrot
Wants to mate with you and leave you great with baby birds.
He wants you to live with him in his shit-spackled world,
And to understand that, because he needs you, you must love him and never leave,
Even as he yanks out your hair to make a voodoo doll he'll call Mrs. Pembroke--
A monster he can drag around in the shredded newspaper at the bottom of the cage, captive and faded as yesterday's headline.
_____
"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" is a poem by Robert Browning, and can be found HERE.
You are my favorite poet!
ReplyDeleteAloha from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
=^..^=
> < } } ( ° >
send this to 3 magazines!
ReplyDeleteThe thing about keeping birds is--they want revenge for the cage. It's simple. Don't trust them. Don't forget to cover them at night, either.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Browning link--it's been many years since I read that one, and it made me laugh.Not as much as the psittacosis line, but a small, scrofulous spurt of literary snark-induced giggle did escape my lips. This is a finely etched piece of satire, Shay--and works on every level.
i love him swaying like a batshit lunatic. he'd be a lot of fun-at someone elses house.
ReplyDeletenifty scritchin here, fb
rick
It's getting late here in Bend, sun is all gone ... I'm going to bed with a smile on my face after this one! Maybe a few out loud giggles.
ReplyDeleteGeez, you make (parrot) marriage sound so blissful ... what a terrifying ending:
ReplyDelete"And to understand that, because he needs you, you must love him and never leave,
Even as he yanks out your hair to make a voodoo doll he'll call Mrs. Pembroke--
A monster he can drag around in the shredded newspaper at the bottom of the cage, captive and faded as yesterday's headline."
So his wife isn't even a person anymore; he has just ripped out the bits he wants to make a doll and discarded the rest. Am I reading this right?
"He wants your finger" ... Your ring finger, I suppose.
"The only time that Pembroke goes quiet,
Is if your house catches fire in the night" ... Might this be a sexual reference?
psittacosis = bird pneumonia, so if he cannot breathe he might suck away all your fresh air ... he also would depend on you for his survival, to nurse him when he is on his sick bed
Or maybe it's just a funny bird story. :)
This one cracked me up!
ReplyDeleteToo many gems to mention specifically, except I will note:
ReplyDelete"shit-spackled world"
"batshit lunatic" (that could describe some of my colleagues)
and the last two lines.
What a way to start my day, Shay!
He wants you to live with him in his shit-spackled world,
ReplyDeleteAnd to understand that, because he needs you, you must love him and never leave..
Hmmm... There is a lesson in this.
an entertaining romp thru parrot torture. :)
ReplyDeletepsittacosis .. no wonder he's so cranky ;)
ReplyDeleteThis Parrot so clearly knows what fake stuffed animals are for and plays out his fantasy with all of the Dark Gothic Romanticism he can muster! Brutal.
ReplyDeleteFantastic!
I love it. But why do I relate to the woman being dragged around on the bottom of the cage? hee hee.
ReplyDeletePembroke bit me today! I'm not kidding!
ReplyDelete{{tee hee}}
ReplyDeletePenbroke does not want a cracker
'cause he wants to knock you up...
you've got a very deviant mind, Miss Fireblossom!
♥