Uninvited,
unexpected, they arrive…
Four men – stocky & absurd,
frowning in black overcoats
& bowler hats.
Crowding into the bathroom.
Bearing, between them,
a large birdcage –
ornate wire, curled & domed.
On one perch,
a red-gold parrot;
on its twin,
a second parrot’s skeleton;
& on the cage’s floor,
a lovebird contained,
restrained,
in a cube of wire mesh.
“We done did the best we could.”
Muttering,
shuffling, the men depart as,
tumbling from its perch,
the parrot falls,
flashing red-over-gold…
The lovebird remains…
Love,
trapped —
caged within
a cage.
— C.Birde, 12/22
3 Comments
Well written piece
Thank you 🙂 And thank you for visiting!
So, these men look like scholars or stuffy animal scientists out in lousy weather…but talk like “yokels.” Zapdos, Moltres and Articuno share a cage. Zapdos is already dead. Moltres just collapsed and Articuno is bound in wire. Hmm…
[This is not your finest composition of words; you’ve written better.]
The colors must mean something, but you’ve only given color to one of the birds. [If there is only one color scheme for love birds, I don’t know it.]
It sounds like there have been three chances at something or sources of something, perhaps, love, and, now, there is only one left. And, it’s either under “lock and key” or suffocating.
This dream could have been prompted by reflection and that commercial for the latest Puss in Boots film, in which he’s losing all of his lives and trying to do something amazing with the last one.
We don’t know if the men took off with the last bird still alive or if they left the bound bird with you.
Coincidentally, I’ve been playing a game called Rocket League and using an anthem called Caged for the music played when I score. [Actually, currently, the music is set to something far more soothing, but I was using Caged not long ago.]