––––
Once upon an evening beery
As I staggered weak and weary
Forgetting where I’d parked my car
Suddenly I heard a rapping,
Beak on windshield, tap, tap, tapping
From an avenue not far.
I strained to follow it, though blotto
in search of my abandoned auto
Parked outside a dollar store.
Through the street and down the alley
No time to stop, no time to dally
The meter had run out at four.
I watched in awful contemplation
A bird devouring my citation
One no tape nor staple could restore.
Enjoying, to my consternation,
Shredding into decimation
This masochistic papervore.
As I watched this Morris Myna
Destroy my windscreen like bone china
shattered on a kitchen floor.
I pleaded, “Just what doth thou seek?
From whence doth come thy filthy beak
And manners of a gutter whore?”
Quoth the raven, “Jersey Shore.”
He turned to me, as if to mock,
This sick, sadistic chicken hawk
A crowd now formed outside the store.
“Are you sent here from the Nether
Bound by some infernal tether,
Held by an evil centaur?”
Quoth the raven, “Screw Al Gore”
Then it addressed me, this black raven,
Middle digit raised and wavin’
Swearing like a stevedore.
“You foolish man, you spineless dicklet,
Here’s why I devoured your ticket,
Listen up and don’t get sore.”
“You see that clean SRT-8?,
On which I plan to defecate
And watch its owner wail and curse
I’ll revel in a joy perverse.
For when I choose a car to slime
I choose one that won’t waste my time.”
“For if I dumped upon your Sonic
Would be a gesture most sardonic
It’s all about this thing, you see
Its structural integrity
Besides, you certainly don’t care
about good looks, for if you did
You’d not have bought this arachnid”
Reflecting on his malediction
I understood his predilection
Was something he could not ignore.
For avian preordination
Dictates defacing transportation
From Yaris to Aventador
Then to the sky did he recuse
And left me wond’ring what excuse
Would lend my specious case support.
I vowed to tell the court, and hate it,
“The ticket’s gone, a raven ate it,
And thus your mercy I implore.”
Now as we go our separate ways
Heed this advice throughout your days:
Should you see a bird of black
on your ticket snack
Please shoot him with this spiteful word:
“See you in hell, you bastard bird.”
And weapons of the largest bore.
Quoth the raven, “Nev–“
I clicked to open Curbside Classic
as I munched a kosher Vlasic
I hoped to read about a car.
But there Imperialist quoth the Raven
about a ticket he thought worth savin’
most unique post I’ve read thus far.
I never knew this man, the poet
but talent he had and must thus show it
Or was there bad stuff in my pickle jar.
My innards then progressed to queasy
and the answer came to me quite easy;
One of us spendeth too much time in the bar.
Once upon a morning rainy,
There a video quite grainy
From CBC in Yellowknife
Appeared upon my laptop screen.
A vision never before seen –
A raven causing legal strife.
Who will stop these willful ravens,
That show such disregard for wavin’
Arms and shouts of ‘What the f*ck!’?
They have their own minds and desires,
And IQ’s very likely higher
Than your average human schmuck.
There once was a duffer named Rog,
Who putted inside his garage.
Until one day of late,
When he met his sad fate,
When his wife ran him down with her Dodge.
(that’s all I got…)
But your honor, the raven ate my parking ticket!
I bet it was really a crow — otherwise known as a badge-engineered raven.
……….. I plea the 5th…
Ticket-hungry bird
Inspired curbivore verse
color me impressed.