A bird from Verona

“Willy, thou puny
onion-eyed miscreant!”,
shouted the parrot,

feathers thumbed derision,
a gesture of contempt
at the Globe’s top balcony.
His baldy owner scurried
below to a prop box,
took out a pig’s bladder
of archaic language,
bellowed upwards,

“Petty peevy Polly,
thou currish, beak brained,
crook-pated
sqwarkish coxcomb.”

“Thou callest that english? “,
the bird continued,
shakespearing
his head willfully,
wrangled wit recalled
for further flighted reposte,

“Thou roguish ripe-reeling
pigeon fancier’s egg!

Feed me!”