Sentient Creatures
{A Bumbershoot Special Feature}


Paul Stevens

teaches English and History. He has published poems in various magazines, newspapers and ezines.

T.S. Pullet’s The Eggysey, a new epic sequel to his Cluckiad, is composed entirely in poulter’s measure and has just been published by Chanticleer Press. His verse has appeared most recently in Egglectica , Chook Noir, and The New Squawkist.


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The Chickenrun by T.S. Pullet

Roads are the kewellest things, coaxing
Chickens out of the farmyard, spurring
Them to the near highway, stirring
Thoughts of getting across to the other side.
Mash kept us warm, veiling
Poultry brains in broodiness, pecking
Odd specks around the chicken run.
Traffic surprised us, coming over Poulter’s Hill
With a blare of horns; we perched on the median strip,
Roosted in sunlight, preening our ruffled feathers,
And scratched concrete, and clucked on for an hour.
Cluck-cluck cluck-cluck cluck-cluck cluck-cluck cluck-cluck.
And when we were chicks, before the battery-cages,
We ran across a lane, just practising,
And I was frightened. Duckling quacked, Henny-
Penny, scoot off quick! Across we trotted.
On the fabled other side, there we’ll feel free.
I squawk, much of the night, and cross roads in winter.

 
 
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