MaffickMonday #3

This week Alicia wants to know what life would be like if "birds ruled the world"

Birds Rule, O.K?

They'd want to know which Squadron I would join.
"Choose from this catalogue but do not keep
our trigger-happy Flight Commanders waiting.
Note that there is a waiting-list to join
the Birds of Paradise. The State does not
do Paradise. You girls are all the same,
fancying your own fine feathers. All this
prinking and preening never made fine birds. "

I'd ask them not to rush me. How about
a lammergeier?  "A splendid choice," they'd say.
"You carry bones aloft and let them fall
like bombs to shatter on the rocks below.
Great sport, particularly if they were
the bones of some sworn Enemy of State.
You'd swoop and pick their scattered shards for marrow."

I'm spoilt for choice. A raptor seems ideal.
Something I can get my talons into,
rip singing birds to bits to feed my chicks.
Better the sparrow hawk than the wee sparrow
in aviaries where the strong prey on the weak.
That is the way in bird dictatorships
where eagles dare not gainsay parrot-speak
from the high branches where the cockateels
perch, laughable in their 'who's-a-pretty' plumes
with drivel squawking from their raucous beaks.