Poetry…

On The Extinction of the Dodo (For Dan Aram)

The thought of you grips me on the 23 bus

Stuck in traffic brought by a rush of rain

The hydraulics strain and awkwardly creak

And I’m thinking about your silly, clap board beak

Clacking about neo-colonialist policies

Flapping your wings and bobbing your head

In that wry, “have a bit of this” way you did.

I wonder what you’d make of all of this

Shit! Something funny and scathing I guess

But you conspired in your own downfall, let’s not forget

All that floating on your island,

All that coupling reticence

All those silly jokes you cracked

Instead of any golden eggs

All that green flash jungle wasn’t nearly deep enough

To hide in like you seemed to want

To keep away from every hunter’s shot

By the end your pigeon English only tied you up in knots

People couldn’t understand you,

They didn’t know that you were lost

Some even spread the rumour you were nothing but a ghost.

And though I know it’s useless

Because it’s been too long since we heard

Anything from you, you daft old bird,

I can’t help but try to bring to mind

Your haunting, darkly comic cry

Our last, lost, lovely dodo

Under the lonely city sky.