Sinister: no use for syllabub

[Gordon]

Fellow chaps, ladies, four legged and feathered friends,

My pipe filled with an old nineteenth century blend of orange and red
smoking leaf, Brazilian and Mysore Indian tobacco, a candle set up next to
the modern day difference engine and a  recording of parlour tunes fiddled
by  Pinchas Zukerman in the... parlour of sorts through the hallway, I shall
begin with today's words: (there's no telling when you might require them:)
tabor: of Oriental origin, a drum, but also, from the Arabic 'tunbur' a kind
of lute or lyre hence:
tabouret: 'a low seat or stool [so shaped], without back or arms, for one
person', but also, a 'frame [lyre-shaped?] for embroidery'.
hirsute: 'hairy, shaggy'
syllabub: 'a drink made of sweetened milk or cream curdled with wine or
spirits'

And in flutters the parrot, straight from an elocution lesson I sent it to,
as the poor thing seems to have picked up a vulgar Scot's vernacular (not to
malign the true Scots tongue)
on the boat from Australia (it'll be all those cheap and mouthy Mockintosh
knick-knacks in the hold that dodged the ozzie crane to stow away back home
again, teaching the well-travelled bird more bad practices whilst about
it.).
"So how was it?"
"It wis craaap!" squawks the avian vision in green, spattering a mixture of
rainwater and spit on the keyboard, "The teachur wis an eedjit; couldnae
tell 'er dipthongs from 'er 'airpiece, the auld bint!"
"Aherm, so you return with little learning, I see. I'm possibly going to
have to buy you subtitles for Christmas"
"Aye!" it responds, with as close to a grin as its beak will allow.
"So tell me what you have to say about this," I say, turning to the back
page of Sunday's Times:

"Churchgoer of the week

"A blaspheming parrot has taken up residence in a church bell tower,
swearing at the vicar and wolf-whistling at passers-by. Peter Craig-Wilde,
vicar of St.Mary's at Mirfield, West Yorkshire, first noticed the bird when
somebody told him to 'F*** off!' as he walked past. Now the parrot curses
and whistles through services and weddings. 'Most people find this very
funny, but when it flies about at funerals..."

"Ashes to ashes an' ballocks tae bums," screeches the parrot and,
inadvertently paraphrasing an insult that for hundreds of years until the
1974 translation of 'The Goatherd Versus the Shepheard" by Theocritus had
been either excised or veiled in Latin continues, "ah'll bury ye as deep as
ye buggerd, ye bawgag!"
"Quite. So I take it it was indeed you, stopping off on your journey North
from Ms. Daplyn?"
"Wheeeesht! Yeehaaay! Ah kacked on twa folks gettin' wed an a'."
"Mmm. Well if you'll excuse me I have a poem to type. Do you read poetry?"
"Like heck ah do? Parrots? Read? Are ye outta yer heid? Deid men spoutin'
gibberish..."
"Well this one's by a girl. It's called 'Filling Station'. The girl's called
Elizabeth Bishop. She travelled almost as much as you do."

Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
- this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of colour -
of certain colour. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the tabouret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with grey crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO - SO - SO - SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.


I turn to the parrot "Did you like the poem?"
It wheels around the kitchen, nearly knocking over a tall vase of scentless
roses and causing assorted sections of newspaper to inflate wingwards
"Naaaa! It wis craaaap! Ah'mm oot ah here!"
" Well just remember you're to pay a visit to the PICKLE PRINCE next"

And with a rip of fabric and shattering glass, the bird is off into the
dreich night, heading in the wrong direction. Hopefully it will get there
eventually.

Gordon


+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper           +-+
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
 +-+  "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000  +-+
 +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
 +-+               Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut!                +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+