The Hawk and the Nightingale

A fable? Here’s a fable for you, Mr. Fancy Pants Poet Boy. There’s this nice nightingale sitting way up in a goddamn oak tree with her red neck, warbling away like every good nightingale should. But then there’s this hawk, right? With big shiny claws and a baddd attitude. He’s zooming around way up high, real stealth like, and he hears the nightingale songing her song so he swoops down for a closer looksee. He must like what he sees, too, because no sooner than he’s got her in his sights than his claws are digging into her pretty red neck real tight. And before the nightingale even knows what’s happening, that tree is history. She’s midair and stuck there.

Now the nightingale has a pretty good idea of what’s about to happen – lunch – and it’s not looking like she’s going to be the guest of honor. So the poor girl does the only thing she can, she begs. “Please Sir Mister Hawk Sir, won’t you let me go Sir? A bigger bird than me would taste as good, more filling, too.” She’s crying a little as she says this, getting wet little droplets all down her little red neck, because God knows things aren’t looking good. And normally the hawk wouldn’t say anything, but the whole scene is too goddamn pitiful. So “Look at yourself,” he says, “and pull yourself together. Christ! You’re headed my way, whether you like it or not. You don’t have to be a baby about it.”

Now I’m not going to say whether the hawk eats the nightingale or not. It doesn’t matter. Point is, he can, and your stupid poems won’t make a hoot of a difference.