Today the Chicken crossed the road
Soon followed by the Rooster
Who followed his hormonal goad
With no blue pill for booster.
Why the Rooster Followed the Chicken Across the Road (As If You Didn’t Know)
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Tag Archives: poultry
chickens
chickens
to Susan Vespoli
there is a place to stroll in my neighborhood
that i think of as the Chicken District
simply because chickens abound
and stroll like i do. once
a lady was leading a troupe of chicks
to safety off the asphalt of Earll Drive
and i called from down the street
“aha! NOW i know why
The Chicken Crossed The Road!” and she laughed
and declared herself the Crazy Chicken Lady.
today was another saunter in the District
but then in a group of four
i saw a specimen with some feathers
that were the strawberry blonde
described by my poet friend Susan V
in her heartstopping poem “Chicken”
that was really about her son
and the processing of her anxiety and grief
about him–
a golden hen magically appeared
and then disappeared
but the reader must decide
if the bird was real
or manifested by a grieving mother
to step down the high voltage
of her helplessness
in watching her son’s life
take its
tragic
turns.
when i saw that strawberry blonde
my friend and her poem magically popped
into my suddenly unlulled thoughts
and it became not a coincidence
but a needed component of life on earth
that Tragic
and Magic
rhyme.
chickens
cross roads
lay eggs
become fricasseed
pick out dough in breadpans
peck and scratch and look askance
and reveal glory and downfall
and the bond
that shared grief
creates.
Afterword: Susan’s poem “Chicken” may be found in her outstanding collection Blame It on the Serpent, available via Amazon.
Step Hen King
I think I’ve read more words that Stephen King has written than words by anyone else. (Robert Heinlein and Herman Wouk might be close.) That includes CARRIE, THE STAND (both the cut and uncut editions), THE DARK HALF, THE DEAD ZONE, CUJO, FIRESTARTER, HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, CHRISTINE, MISERY, PET SEMATARY, INSOMNIA, GERALD’S GAME, DANSE MACABRE, collections SKELETON CREW and FOUR SEASONS, THE SHINING, the entire Dark Tower series, and most recently, DOCTOR SLEEP, sequel to THE SHINING. I also read ON WRITING, which I’d recommend to creative people of all media.
Naturally I want to pay some sort of tribute to a man who’s provided me with numberless hours of imaginative entertainment. A few days ago I got this far with a draft of the Stephen King page:
This draft was doomed, but I felt bad scrapping it: I really liked some of the character portraiture, and since I’m an erratic portraitist, when I get it right it breaks my heart not to use it. So here it is.
And here are the words to the acrostic:
SPIDERS help weave his tapestries–hence dyers use batik
Thrown in: all AND the kitchen sink; a float evokes Caltiki
Ectoplasmics & ashenness get kith & kin & kine
Paranormal phenomena are fodder for his Shining
Caltiki? Well, there’s a bad half-Italian movie of the late 50s entitled CALTIKI –THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (or, when in Rome: CALTIKI — IL MONSTRE IMMORTALE) that I’d be willing to bet 500 to 1 Stephen King has seen. He’s got a similar flesh-devourer in one of his short stories; it floats by an anchored raft. (It’s dissimilar enough to be considered an independent creation, though.) The name of the King story escapes me.
Steve, if you ever see this, I echo my apologetic chicken regarding the awful “poultry-geist” joke. I needed to fill up the space. Keep up the good work, man.
One with Clay, Image and Text 