The Crow: An Ad Hoc Parody

If you're reading this, it's too late...you were warned! But you still read on.

What lurks below is a poem I wrote in an attempt to lovingly parody a much better poem by Edgar Alan Poe, namely 'The Raven'. It isn't actually a parody, if you  use the exact definition, more of a changing up of the poem and its point for (hopefully) humorous results. 

So, if you're brave, and haven't eaten a large lunch, scroll on, on into the poem below, valiant reader! If you finish it, comment below with your thoughts, and if you parish bravely in the battle inside, we will erect a memorial page on the blog, and your next of kin can send in a stirring epitaph for all to see.

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Once upon a morning weary,

As I pondered, weak and bleary

Many an empty alcoholic bottle

There came a noisome sound of banging

Upon my window where were hanging

Curtains that I’d bought on sale in Gottle

The noise started my head a-thund’ring,

As if through it a giant blundering

Was wreaking havoc on my sodden brain

Before to bed I could escape

The noise from behind my window drape

Increased until I could not bear the pain

With cries and swearing ripe as kiwis,

Plucked from the Obscenest trees

I staggered over to the window slot

At speed I cracked the window pain,

So that I could ascertain

The person who had helped me rest, or not

Sitting there upon the sill,

The target for my rife bad will

Stared back at me from both sides of its beak

Black as well-tarred undergarments,

Feathers scruffy as a varmint’s

With baleful eyes at me the crow did peak

Askance I stared without a word,

Down at the small black feath’ry bird

And wondered how it could have knocked so loud

But before I could inquire,

It hopped past me, sat by the fire

And kicking aside some bottles, to me it bowed

Taking my seat by the embers,

Of the hearth which in Novembers

I had lit and huddled by in need

“Are you my imagination?

Or a drunken machination?”

Asked I, but the crow croaked to me, “No indeed.”

“Are you then a devilish demon?

Formed out of my sinful dreaming?

Maybe from one of the books I read?

Are you one, or perhaps both?

Of those evil things I quoth?”

But the crow made answer to me, “No indeed.”

Then it bent and pecked with gusto,

At an empty can of Musto

Then stared at me, eyes black as a bead

“Did you come because you think,

That I depend too much on drink?”

Wheezed I too which the crow answered “Indeed.”

“But alcohol helps you to mend,

And makes you many a stalwart friend!”

Jumped I to my own defense at speed

The crow looked ‘round the empty room,

The friend-free floor with bottles strewn

I could but nod as the crow croaked “Indeed.”

The bird was right although I hated,

That a black dishrag seemed to be fated

To break me of my long established need

“Could it be, oh black winged wonder,

That you can heal a bad hangover?”

But that strange crow made answer “No indeed.”

Yet still with its frank dreariness,

It had broken me out of my bleariness

And showed me what I’d made myself in greed

So, happily, I shook its wing,

And thanked the crow for everything

To hear just one single last “Indeed.”

And as it flew off with a drab wing’s flutter,

I did not close the window shutter

But watched until I saw the black bird go

I was very glad for its company,

But was happy it had not stayed with me

For all its helpful merits…not great conversation was the crow

No indeed.