Tithonus talks to his Ancient Parakeet

No-one asked you if you wanted to live this long,
spending your days asking people if they thought you were a pretty boy

or pretending to be a telephone

No-one told you you’d lose your perky-feathered-chickness
ending up croaky and bald-patched, spouting nonsense.
And if they had, ‘That’s life,’ you would have said
if your bird brain were capable of such philosophical thought.

If I, driven to despair by your doorbells and whistling kettles,
choose to throttle you in the middle of an ambulance siren
you’ll die and that’ll be an end of it.

I chose to quaff the draught of promised immortality,
I ached for future wonders - worlds beyond belief.
No-one told me I would shrink and shrivel through eternity.
No-one warned me of the terror, watching
as generations come, endure and go.

I am not a pretty boy.
I am a twisted, tortured thing…
howling