Sinister: bad habits

[Rachel Playforth]

Last night I was awoken by a terrible din outside my kitchen window.  I
at first assumed it was the small noisy baby who seems to be in some way
related to my downstairs neighbour, out for a moonlight crawl in the
garden.  But unless it had grown wings and was vigorously beating them
against the wall (and I wouldn't put it past it) this was something
else.  My next thought was 'bloody Ian', naturally.  And it was, in a
way.  I opened the window and immediately a small nun flew in and
collapsed on top of the toaster.  At least, I thought it was a small
nun, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a parrot in a nun's
costume.  Before I could say anything about this frankly peculiar
get-up, let alone the late hour, the bird unleashed a stream of
invective:

"I've been out in this sodding garden for a week and a half now you
dense muppet!  I came here deliberately to see you, despite all the
incredibly nasty things Ian said about you!  And you've been pottering
around in a bloody world of your own, washing up and making toast and
stuff while I'm dancing on your windowsill in a freaking nun's habit,
trying to get your attention!  Why do I fucking bother, eh?  Now make me
some caviar and crackers and hurry up about it, halfwit."

So I did.

And then, still at the top of its rather ugly voice, the parrot
declaimed:

The High Achievers

Educated in the Humanities,
they headed for the City, their beliefs
implicit in the eyes and arteries
of each, and their sincerity displayed
in notes, in smiles, in sheaves
of decimal etcetera.  Made,
they counted themselves free.  Those were the hours
of self-belief, and the slow accolade
of pieces clattering into a well.
And then the shrug of powers,
and the millions glutted where they fell
toadstooling into culture.  Who knows when
they made their killings during that hot spell:
flies or policemen?  An infinity
of animals began
to thrive especially, as when the dull sea,
sick with its fish, was turning them to men. 

	Glyn Maxwell



After that, the parrot and I had a cup of cocoa and went to bed, feeling
a lot more comradely.  In the morning I went out for more caviar and
made scrambled eggs, then I put on some Go Betweens CDs**.  But I didn't
want him to get TOO cosy, so I gave him a rather rough bath (meanwhile
burning the moldering nun's habit) and some cold tea with flies in it,
by which time he was quite ready to be despatched across the atlantic
to...

... MandeeMay our favourite quiet American, who may render even the
Poetry Parrot speechless with her own talents.

love Archel xxx

** 28th April, London Astoria! Don't forget! Maybe even mail me off list
if you want to form a Sinister convoy.



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