Watching Chooks

nature, Personal Reflection 1 Minute

In the style of Kay Ryan

In the backyard
strands of trash
plastic, twine
or haberdash
scratched up from
decades now past
by chooks. They don’t
aim to be iconoclasts;
they just scratch and
their beady eyes
seek bugs or roots
or wormy writhe.
And as they dig
the little chicks
check the minutiae
of their flicks
and go for colours
often synthetic.
Imagine birds, 
driven by genetics
eating this waste
this indelible crap.
Picture intestines
in plastic wrap.

Written for NaPoWriMo day #23: “I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. Once you’ve read a few, you’ll see what I mean. Here’s her “Token Loss,” “Blue China Doorknob,” “Houdini,” and “Crustacean Island.””

Published by abigfatcanofworms

We all walk in the dark. But if we hold hands, perhaps the dark won't be as scary.

Published

20 thoughts on “Watching Chooks”

  6. The form works well its catchy and quick. You could say quick- tempered. The message comes across with strong images. The birds around here are beginning to nest build and i wonder how much garbage they see out there.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. Oh! “Picture intestines in plastic wrap” has such impact. Plastic is one of our worst inventions and it remains forever. A really good poem.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. thanks, Kate. based absolutely in real experience. OUt in the cat yard with the chooks and watching Einstein go for all the rubbish. I ended up picking up heaps of rubbish and wondering how it got there. The cat yard has been there for 15 years so I don’t think the rubbish blew in while the mesh was there

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s