Requiem for a Featherweight

Remember the drinking bird heat engine toy? 
You may have called yours the insatiable birdie 
or the dunking bird or the dipping bird or even 
(incorrectly, of course) the dinky bird perpetual 
motion machine. Whatever you called it, I can 
assure you it was nothing at all like mine. 

Say “slainte!” to me Drinkin’ Bird.
(His cocktails…? Shaken, never stirr’d.)
Propose a toast! Me clinkin’ bird
will belt his next, throw down a third,
a fourth, a…”’Nuf! Tha’s sinkin,’ Bird.
Tha face be flush’d. Tha speech be slurr’d.”
(Me Drinkin’ Birds’s one stinkin’ bird.)

“Tha’ll lose thy eyesight, Drinkin’ Bird,

if tha’s glaucoma goes uncur’d.”
(At home I calls ‘im “Winkin’ Bird”;
four floaters leave his pupils blurr’d.
But dons he specs…? Not Blinkin’ Bird.
His fear…? Folks finger him a nerd.
(Me Drinkin’ Bird’s no thinkin’ bird.)

Reminds me, does me Drinkin' Bird,
of authors' fashionin's through word.
There's Whitman's thrush.* (Walt's "Lincoln bird"...?)
There's Nod and Wynken (Blynken's third;
I once knew Field's verse** word-for-word).
There's Ary Hoffman's shrinkin' bird.***
(Though climate change has spawn'd a herd,
still activists bide, undeterr'd.)
     * Footnotes to come

Play’d Steinways, did me Drinkin’ bird.
Like Liberace, Bird play’d furr’d
(all ermin’d up: no Minkin’ bird)
and swann’d about like hell, I’ve heard.
He oft were bill’d “Ye Plinkin’ Bird.”
(A memoir’s due. ‘Tis too absurd:
this turd’s become an inkin’ bird.)

“Yet ars runs longa, Drinkin’ bird.
Tha’s denoument’s too long deferr’d.
No longer be tha ‘Brink’in’ Bird.
Tha’s due to be in hearse chauffeur’d.
In zinc-lined urn shall Zincin’ Bird,
ex-drinkin’ buddy, be interr’d.
(En fin, me friend’s a Finkin’ Bird.)