Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Sunday Night Poetry -- Why The Chicken Dies

WHY THE CHICKEN DIES

Because on the other side
there is ginger root and lime.

Because there is tarragon and wine
and recipes in the New York Times,

and an aproned priestess
carving its breast into pieces,

preparing it for boil
and anointing it in oil.

Because it is chicken, there'll never be
a BolĂ­var in its pantheon of poultry.

It is a thing with feathers
with no hope that it will ever

be unchickened from its fate
from egg to porcelain plate.

                  --Shaw Kenawe

3 comments:

Silverfiddle said...

I love your poetry. And the New York Time cooking section is awesome. It's where I got the idea and recipe for my now famous lamb burgers.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Thank you, SF. After spending a weekend on a farm with chickens, geese, horses, etc., in Maine, I thought this would be appropriate.

I was chased by a rooster AND my cousin's male goose, pickles. That rooster was one mean territorial basterd!

Don't know what I did to incur their wrath--although I had painted my toenails tourquoise. Maybe that did it?

KP said...

Love it!

If you keep running you may lose a toe nail here and there. To maintain the rooster's unwanted attention just paint the skin to look like a toenail :-)