The Gorko Gazette

Daily Humor

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2.16.2026 6:36 AM

Raven for a Parrot by James Callan

Raven for a Parrot

Oaken wedge cleaving emerald to white
spume off the bow, Cap’n off his rocker
propelling a powder keg ashore
Carrack of cudgels and gleaming guns
cutlasses in fist, and gutless fish
carpeting the stern with silver and pearl
eyes to the sky, writhing no more.

Lo! A beach! The black provender of God
burnt biscuits and charred chicken

It’s volcanic, you clam-brained rustabouts!
Fine-grained basalt, obsidian, magnetite.
It’s science, you chowderheads!
Geochemical phenomenon!
Now row, me hearties! Row!

Plumes of jet pale the Jolly Roger
Roger, who is jolly, pales at the omen

Row, men! Row! Omen, be damned!
Oars, men! Oars! Hard, to the sand!

Tis the Land of Ice, but everything is green—
green hills, green boys, green in the gills
Vomit in the dingy, seagull shit and salt
Terrible stare (legs wide, arms crossed)
One-eyed like a pirate with a raven for a parrot
Odin himself, and the braided swine
blond as gold behind their walls of wood
Painted shields and axes, gray and angry
biting, howling like the dreaded sea.

Turn ‘round, me hearties! Row, men! Row!
Roger was right, and Roger is dead,
reddening the waves, churning like lava
Bubbling guts and shifting bones,
geochemical phenomenon, writhing no more.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, Burial Magazine, X-R-A-Y, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.