The Pigeon

This is another old file I found in the vaults. I wrote this back in college for a poetry class, so it's about twelve years old, but if you know the original poem, it might be a little entertaining if not exhausting. We had to do a parody of poem, and instead of picking a manageable sonnet or something, I chose to spend three hours doing this.

The Pigeon
A parody of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven

Once upon a midnight drunken, in my sofa softly sunken,
Leafing through many a curious issue of some soft-core porn.
Over the toilet I was hanging, when there came a horrid clanging,
As if someone was a’banging, clanging at my trailer door.
“It’s just Jenkins,” this I muttered, “clanging at my trailer door-
Just John Jenkins, nothing more.”

It was foggy I recall. Maybe sometime late last fall,
And the smell of stinking offal crept in through my taped-screen-door.
Prayed to God I’d see tomorrow, wished I had a gun to borrow,
To put an end to all my sorrow, sorrow for that nameless whore.
For that cheap, unchary chippy whom I call...the nameless whore,
Cause she slipped out the back door.

And the dusty, dry, uncertain flapping of each flowered curtain
thrilled me-- filled my shorts, the likes you’ve never seen before.
So to stop the pulsing pounding of my heart, I started sounding,
“That you Jenkins, boldly banging, clanging at my trailer door?
“That John Jenkins boldly banging, clanging at my trailer door?”
It’s just Jenkins, nothing more.”

Then I finally found some strength, and blurted my thoughts at length:
“Sir,” said I, “or Ma’am, your coming late sure makes me sore;
Over the toilet I was hanging, and so rudely you came banging,
And so loudly you came clanging, clanging at my trailer door,
That my neighbors probably heard you”-here I opened up the door—
Lawn-chairs there and nothing more!

Across the trailer park I stared, shivering, because I was so scared,
Psycho, shivering, shaking-scared, like no one ever shook before.
The creepy quietness unbroken, on my stogy I was tok’n,
And the only words there spoken were the screams, “You stupid whore.”
This my neighbor called his wife as he kicked her out the door—
Domestic violence, nothing more.

Back into my trailer turning, to the smell of tobacco burning,
Then again I heard a banging, somewhat louder than before.
“Dammit,” said I, “dammit who is pounding at my window lattice?
Let me go check what the threat is, but if it’s just kids I’ll sure be sore!
Let my temper cool a second, so as not beat them like before,
It’s just kids and nothing more.”

Then I opened up the shutter, and with many a flap and flutter’
Inside flew a dirty pigeon, from the Baptist church next door.
Not a single sound he made; found a spot, and there he stayed.
“This is what made me afraid, now perched above my trailer door,
Perched upon the helmet of Dallas, just above my trailer door?
A stupid pigeon, nothing more!”

This dumb bird tricked me to thinking, probably cause I was drinking,
That my life was in grave danger from someone, I could have sworn.
“Though your chest is green and shaven, at least” I said, “you’re not the raven,
Dirty, dumb, and pesky pigeon, flying from the church next door.
Tell me what your special name is, what they call you right next door.”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

Baffled by the bird so queer, then to hear him say so clear,
Though I knew not of his meaning; what he meant by nevermore.
For I cannot help but say that no one else in no other way
Ever yet was cursed with having a pigeon above their trailer door—
bird or beast on helmet of Dallas, just above their trailer door,
With such a name like, “Nevermore”.

Then that pigeon, sitting lofty on the Dallas head cooed softly
That one word, as if himself in one big terd he did outpour’
Nothing else that pigeon said, and then just sat there as if dead.
Then I in a whisper said, “Other pests have left before—
Tomorrow morning he will leave me, like the cherished nameless whore.”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

Startled by the silence broken by that word so clearly spoken,
“Probably,” said I, “all it can say is that one word and nothing more.
Learned it from some unsexed master’s wife who met with sad disaster;
He cheated bad and had a bastard, then her screams this burden bore,
Cut him off from any sex-life, that celibacy promise bore,
Screaming, ‘Never-nevermore.’”

This damn pigeon kept me thinking, so I sat and kept on drinking,
Strait I pulled a beanbag chair in front of bird, and helmet, and door.
There upon the vinyl sinking, I engaged myself to linking
Psychosis with my sanity; thinking what this pesky bird on door-
What the hell this dank and dirty, fat, and filthy bird on door
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

Then I sat engaged in matching the bird with my incessant scratching:
That mangy pigeon’s leeching lice had bored into my hairy core.
About the bird I sat divining, with my body: scratching, reclining
On that itchy beanbag lying that the Stroh’s light gloated o’er,
But whose vinyl lime-green lining with the Stroh’s light from the bar,
I shall press, ah nevermore.

Then the air grew thick, I choked, as if by some unseen smoke
Puffed by bar-flies whose breath now stunk from smoking since the age of four.
“Wretch,” I cried, “what devil has sent thee, by the demons he have bent thee,
Alcohol was my sweet nepenthe, and I loved that nameless whore!
Chug, o chug this kind nepenthe, and forget that nameless whore!”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

“Bastard!,” said I, then inflected, “bastard bird diseased, infected!
Whether Satan sent thee, or you smelled peanuts on my floor,
Cut to the chase damn bird,” I ranted, “ in my drunken world enchanted-
In this trailer you have haunted, tell me dammit, I implore-
Is there- can I drink in heaven? Tell me, tell me I implore!”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

“Bastard,” said I, then inflected, “filthy foul diseased, infected!
By the heaven high above us, and the God whose name I swore,
Tell this body liquor laden, if, within the distant heaven,
I shall clasp a bawdy maiden whom I call the nameless whore-
Clasp that leathery, busty maiden whom I call...that nameless whore.”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

“Let that be your word of leaving, bird or fiend!” My lungs now wheezing -
Get the hell out from my trailer, to the Baptist church next door!
Let no birdshit be a token of the crap that you have spoken!
Leave my drunkenness unbroken! Get the hell off of my door!
Leave your beak out of my peanuts, and get your ass from off my door!”
Said the pigeon, “Nevermore.”

Then that bastard, never flitting, still is sitting and is shitting
On the Cowboy’s helmet, just above my trailer door.
And his eyes have all the seeming of a dog in heat that’s dreaming,
And the Stroh’s light over him streaming, red-lined shadows on the floor;
And my soul from off that beanbag that lies sitting on the floor
Shall be lifted-Nevermore!