The Budgie

Late one evening feeling grumpy,
mad at Maeve who chose to dump me,
jealous, jaundiced, downright jumpy,
scuppered by the daily grind;
suddenly there came a chatter
as if something was the matter,
then a crunch and then a clatter
banging at my attic blind.
What demonic shape was calling,
banging at my attic blind?

So I had the sudden notion
I should check out this commotion,
then I saw a bird in motion
flying underneath the blind.
Came a budgie flapping madly
till it perched upon me gladly,
quite an entrance and yet sadly
darkness gripped my fevered mind.
What ungodly creature had me?
What foul sprite possessed my mind?

I was I no mood for laughter
but it stayed and then thereafter
I felt daft and then felt dafter;
daftness of the daftest kind.
Silently we stood together,
not a single ruffled feather.
Then I started thinking whether
things might easily unwind;
thinking whether grudging budgies
was an act quite unrefined.

‘Sorry’, said I, ‘but your visit
seems so strange that I must quiz it.
Is it merely chance or is it
something which must be defined?
Please dear budgie tell me, tell me.
Forces in my head compel me.
Tell me for my worries fell me.
Tell me,’ I confess I whined.
‘Horrors, horrors overwhelm me.’
Quoth the budgie: ‘Never mind.’

Then I told him of each feeling,
of each trial and of each dealing
never dreaming of concealing
till in time the bird opined.
Out it came in one full flurry,
fluently each curse and worry,
with no pause but in no hurry
like some quest I’d been assigned,
spilling out a vat of slurry.
Quoth the budgie: ‘Never mind.’

And his voice so clear and soothing
never judging nor reproving
cast on me a spell so moving
that my mental state relined.
Now when darker moods come lurking
while at rest or while I’m working
I speak freely without shirking,
breaking bonds which used to bind.
When the mirthless wraiths come smirking
quotes the budgie: ‘Never mind.’