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MOCKING BIRDS
Every third chorus that you sing Comes out discordant squawk Not liquid, like your early strains, But more like bar-room talk. It sounds like human mockery Like low scale honky-tonk All rancid with debauchery, A river roiled and wrong. Why not pick out sweet notes to sing,
Oh mimic of mankind?
In a world so rank with harsh mocking,
What do we need with thine?*
Some birds, (poultraicly correct),
Mock on from night to morn;
Their foul derision splats the deck
With never-ending scorn.
Seek not their perch from which to wail
Invoking Heaven’s curse,
Instead, go mock the nightingale;
Why praise the fowler’s hearse?
*don't
be critical, I know 'thine' in archaic and also too
G. Pinkney 2/ 4/ 03
Copyright
2006 © Gene Pinkney
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