by Marc Gunn, Fall 1987

I wrote this in the 10th grade for a class project while studying Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. It comes from the voice of Mark Anthony after he finds Julius Caesar recently killed and in a salad.

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of poultry,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest hen
That ever laid eggs in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that plucked thy costly feathers!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby beaks,
To beg the voice and clucking of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the wings of hens;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of the barnyard;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mother hens shall but smile when they behold
Their chicks quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fowl deeds:
And Foghorn Leghorn's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Farmer by his side come hot from coop,
Shall in these confines with a rooster's voice
Cry 'Cockle Doodle Do,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this fowl deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion hens, crowing for burial.