Once upon a midnight boring, essay-crisis coffee pouring,
I overheard a raucous cawing, outside in the corridor.
Through the door to that dark region saw I, through my terrors legion,
In a cage a dead Norwegian Parrot, lying on the floor,
Decomposing, gently rotting, on the cage's sandy floor.
     Quoth the Parrot, ‘Say no more!’

As I stood, my senses reeling, over me a darkness stealing,
The Parrot stared up at the ceiling, lifeless as a leg of lamb.
"Feathered spirit, dead but speaking, tell me of the truth I'm seeking,
Answer, as you lie there reeking, is a spirit what I am?
Will I perish with my body, processed meat all that I am?"
     Quoth the Parrot, ‘Lovely Spam!’

"Bird of omen, Python-quoting, all your wisdom I've been noting,
But the theme on which you're doting leads me on to thoughts inane.
Must you, like a soda-siphon, keep on spouting Monty Python -?"
But I broke off with a hyphen, as I heard a laugh insane -
All our existential life and death were in that screech insane -
     Quoth the Parrot, ‘Hurts my brain!’

And the Parrot, often whining, on my floor is still reclining
In its cage, and pining, pining, longs for Norway's fjorded shore;
And here I can no longer work, as I've no time for feathered lurkers
Quoting from the Flying Circus, rotting by my bedroom door.
And I long to grab the bird, and, throwing it through my front door,
     Tell the Parrot, ‘Say no more!’

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All material © Philip Purser-Hallard 2003 except where otherwise noted, and not to be used without permission.