Gulls

There's always a storm down the Thames these days
Constant as traffic, a carousel of gull calls
Over the tiles, the roofs, rusted swinging hinges
Even in spring blue sky, days since rainfall
There must always be a storm in the Thames.

They eat the pigeons, the gulls do
With their ired eye and their wronged screech
I've seen them, like you may have too
Pigeons left the field for Parrakeets.

My mother, looking at the clouds would mutter
When thigh high young her hand I reached for
There's storm at Chatham, over Thanet
They fly down to London to find harbor
And Pigeons are softer than Ganets.

There must be a storm out to sea
Pigeons have moved on from grass seed
And the Gulls have moved on from fish
Pecking boxes of K.F.C
Avians scavenging trash
It is, as Darwinian does
These days we breed Vultures from Doves.

I heard of civil war where Starlings breed
Now they travel with but a clutch of friends
Sparrows survive, some return to the trees
Someone won five thousand pounds in the end.

There's a storm in the Thames, gulls are in flight
The wooden lense of tradition has said
Of people who look on red sky at night
Only shepherds of the Atlantic
Go soundly to bed, and Grandma will tell
That is was all fields, before Haber-Bosch
These days there's always a storm in the Wash.

There's always a storm down the Thames
And other legends
The widow in Richmond, who in loving grief
Released a pair of green Parrakeets
And park by park they fought for twenty years
Till they shocked us one scarfed schooled winter
Green against grey and the naked trees of the heath
A flock of sqwaking green Parrakeets.

Doves become Vultures, Parrots replace Doves
Darwin says it what it takes to find love
Grandma says the Lord works in mysterious ways
And there's always a storm in the Thames these days.