Duval's Birds

Conrad Potter Aiken 1889 (Savannah, Georgia) – 1973 (Savannah, Georgia)



The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness,
Circled three times above the upturned faces
With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings,
And then returned to stagger on her finger.
She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause. . .
The property man hated her dirty birds.
But it had taken years—yes, years—to train them,
To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings,
Or climb sedately little flights of stairs.
When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand,
And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows.
The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire;
The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

31 sec read
47

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGCHIJDK
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 626
Words 106
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13

Conrad Potter Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author born in Savannah Georgia whose work includes poetry short stories novels and an autobiography more…

All Conrad Potter Aiken poems | Conrad Potter Aiken Books

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