NaPM April 21 2016

[RiverNotch]

Edit, part 3:

Since this edit didn't really transform the poem, only change the title and a few line breaks and junk, I'll just edit this in:

PATRIARCH

Here in the city, the birds
are always begging for food -- their songs,
however light, are never happy ones.

Even the crowned rooster, who at dawn
courts the sun with a little chicken dance,
does not do so out of love,

unless one confuses
the ease of Abraham's climb
with his knife.

Then the cock returns to his kingdom,
the feathers earlier washed by dew now dried by the warming light,
and he finds that he is one son less,

all for the sake of a handful of corn
scattered across the barren road

LE SOLEIL

Here in the city, the birds
are always begging for food -- their songs,
however light, are never happy ones.

Even the crowned rooster, who at dawn
courts the sun with a little chicken dance,
does not do so out of love,

unless one confuses
the ease of Abraham's climb
with his knife.

Then the cock returns to his kingdom,
the feathers earlier washed by dew
now dried by the warming light,

and he finds that he is one son less,

all for the sake of a handful of corn
scattered across a barren field.

---

Also, from the Lord of the Rings:

You know, chickens?
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew?

---

And damn, Keith, Achebe -- your poems, and I mean this out of admiration, are real piles of green shit. And jm, Leanne ---- I think I'll just eat beef from now on.

But I ask: where are the fun chicken poems? I'd think that beasts burdened with bird-brains would be more happy than, I dunno, existentially denied --