Being cooped in a crate,
cooped in a crate,
as one is cooped in crates
on West South Water Street
of the filthy stinking Chicago River—
being cooped in a crate
with more hens than a crate can hold,
is not an existence,
even for hens,
but it gives one a sense of safety,
monotony, warmth and interest
I don't deplore.
What I deplore
is this being yanked by the neck,
yanked by the neck,
yanked by the neck,
and being flung, crammed and damned
by a common filthy stinking
West South Water Street poultryman
of the filthy stinking Chicago River
from one crate to another,
one crate to another.
It's enough to make an old hen squawk,
and I'm an old hen, if you please,
a roosterless, eggless, chickenless!
There's ever the hope in a hen like me
that the next crate
will be one's last,
so that this being slammed
from one crate to another,
one crate to another,
one crate to another,
will reach a cadence.
I'm an old hen, if you please,
a roosterless, eggless, chickenless,
and I can endure
filthy stinking West South Water Street
of the filthy stinking Chicago River
of the filthy stinking Loop of Chicago, Illinois,
but wring my neck ere my time
if I don't squawk truth for all hens
when I affirm that this
one crate to another,
one crate to another,
one crate to another,
is no hop forward
but a hop backward from
being cooped in a crate,
cooped in a crate.
Being cooped in a crate,
a hen might find something to scratch,
though it's only one's neighbor,
and one is sans claws,
sans even a feather
to scratch her with!
Oh, Poultry Man,
you are truly
the God of hens!