Chicken Philosophy

All life is sacred
Maybe some is more sacred than others.
The life of the deer is not sacred to the wolf.
Nor the corn, to the deer.

And nothing is sacred to a fucking chicken.

Slurp a worm from the earth,
Snatch a fly from the air,
Rip a seed from a pod,
Bite Charlotte from her web.

It’s all just “FOOD” to a hen.

Some chickens lay eggs, yes.
Others drive their beaks into them
to sup on the yellow goodness within.
Or whatever else they find.

All life is sacred, until you’re hungry enough.

Chickens are social animals.
And they welcome each other
by trying to break the necks of new hens.
If you’re too big to kill, you’re in.

All life is sacred, unless you’re too weak to keep it.

When a chicken dies, it stresses the flock.
But that doesn’t stop them from pecking.
The eyes and flesh of their fallen comrade
A snack for the survivors.
Even with a bounty of grains, they’ll sample the dead.

All life is sacred, but what’s left behind is just meat.

Roosters are cowards and rapists,
on top of being braggarts.
They’ll work their harems into featherless misery
Defending them only from rival roosters.
When predators near
proud cocks can be found
hiding under piles of their brides.

All life is sacred, and none is more sacred than our own.

Keeping too many roosters is a cruelty.
To hen and farmer and other roosters alike.
Nature makes far too many of them
For any farm or flock to keep.
Culling is a pretty word.
Exsanguination is lovely.
They both mean death.
Which means quiet, and peace, and health
That life would have denied.

Death, too, is sacred.

Rainer Ep: 4

The mines were treacherous places,

Everyday a worker or two would loose their lives

And they were carried away never seen again

Stained air and polluted gases clouded the atmosphere

The workers were assigned to different tasks

Sut and cement were dug up from the war torn ground

Long plastic hoses were used to drain the flooded tunnels beneath

While the last of the workers including the woman chiseled off the lichen growing on buildings

For the first time in a long time,

The woman realized all these things

Her nose burned and so did her throat and eyes

As her mind slowly reappeared, so did the pain from exhaustion and tiredness

She felt disgusted by all these things, but she still determined to get out.

 

Prompt five hour four

 

On powdered wings we glide

towards sticky sweetness

a nice surpirse.

Who leaves this treat?

This trickery display?

Luring midnight butterflies

a moths flame away.

Out of our element, a risk of feast

To feed on daylight

and forrbidden sweets.

Our ritual is of flight

Not of sweetness, nor of light

for we are midnight butterflies

on powdered wings we glide.

Your sweetness cannot trap

a gypsy of the sky.

 

C. Churchill

 

 

Listless

The rain hangs like a thin curtain in the air
As i savor the citrus aftertaste of butterflies from another life
Listless. Heap. Of. Lifelessness.
Broken bodies of mass energy in the universe scattered
Above. My. Mind.
Leaving a sweet bouquet of
Freshly.picked.flowers.

Hour 4

I have taken an offering

Meant for others

And broken a chain of understanding

And rendered intent directionless, untethered

And made of it something more beautiful than could have been achieved by following the rules.

Prompt 5/H4- Collapse (Image Prompt)

Troubled

I tried, I failed
I stood, I flailed
I attempted my task,
took center stage,
sat on that bench as they asked.
It fell, my fault they claimed
I tried again and the result was the same.
Today I’ll try again. With a stool.
I’m no fool if it falls it’s me not them
But I’m not using that damn bench again

The stage goes quiet, the set is lit.
Across the stage is where I must sit.
And as I enter in the room,
My heart beats loudly in this tomb.
I approach from behind.
It cannot see me, the stool is blind
At least I hope this is the case…
Even so, I mark my pace.
10 steps away
5, now 3
Hope does fill me, it’s a possibility
The bench’s fault, not mine indeed!
I am set up to just succeed.

Two steps away I stand
It’s going far better than I planned
Then someone coughs, and I breathe out…
Stupid, stupid, I want to shout.
Collapsing forlorn upon the floor,
The stool is standing no more.
Nor am I, I’ve given up
What fool am I to drink Hope’s Cup.
I cannot perform in a play
If without cajoling the props won’t stay.

19~4

starry starry night

When all the world is asleep

But me…

 

Total silence.

 

~until~

 

The rustleThe bustleThe hustle

The beautiful sound…

Of the water

…Falling behind me…

 

Not from the mountain,

~Pristine in my mind…

 

~but from the ceiling!

 

Ahhhhh…broken broken piping… 

Hour Four – Photo Inspiration…

Bowled over by the truth
Decimated by the lie
The burden once thought able to bear
Has knocked me down – left me to die

I now lie in agony
Weighed down by your sin
Your love was always shallow
Yet I believed I could still swim

Now broken on the floor
You obliviously pass me by
Unaware your callous actions
Set forth your own demise

gj

4 – Dad

Oranges always remind me of you, oranges and furry California wild sage.

and free range venison, the kind that tastes like it lived on a steady diet of furry, California wild sage, and oranges.

and yellow anything, but particularly yellow circles like the ones you studied for work, like the enormous suns clearing our Autumn skies when Mom would keep is all busy back at camp (year after year after year of my life) while you booted through unpathed patches of oaks, your field gear speaking its secrets in soft muffled rustle, your footsteps completely silent, your rifles strapped to your back, oranges and nuts and 2 sandwiches made by your lover pushed into pockets, and the faint swish of water in your canteens- 1 tin, 1 plastic, and the back of your camo’d head never looking back at us, but only forward through the brush to find a deer that had lived on a steady diet of furry California wild sage, bring it back to camp, and fill our freezer for the year, year after year after year.

Your last Autumn here with us, you brought no deer. You filled no freezer. You said that the sun was so bright, and the buck so magnificent, you could not bring yourself to shoot him. You took a photo of him instead, sat back, pulled a sprig of pungent sage from your hair, peeled an orange from the pocket of the field jacket in your lap, and let the bold yellow sun have its sky.

Almost Clean

Almost Clean

 

The old farmhouse windows painted shut

Wavy glass with four panes held together

By hardwood strips shedding white flakes

 

Air inside in measured climate

No breezes visit bringing a clean draft

Bugs enter through unnoticed cracks

 

It is the floor dust she ponders when

Making the queen bed each day

New showings of endless shades of gray

 

Occasionally vacuumed and always

Reached for to drop in the waste

Fuzzy clumps swept with a toe to grab

 

Where does this come from she demands

Out loud to no one but the house

Sealed windows are not talking

 

Not willing to ask friends generously

Blessed with cleaning ladies who

Work only with understandable motes

 

That she be judged for her corners

Queries to the old walls reflect not a

Concern for tidiness nor hygiene

 

It is her curious mind needing to solve

This mystery of immigrant fragments

If only to keep the house almost clean

 

Tobe TT  # 3