Cassidy the Egg-Laying Hen: A Ballad

Well...first off, let me warn you, if you're a very strong chicken lover you may want to stop right here.

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We had to write a ballad for English.

Piano Man by Billy Joel is a perfect example of a ballad.
Actually, as I wrote my ballad, I played each line of this verse at a time and then modeled my line after it...
It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The Regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin
Without accent marks on my own, though, I can't really explain how it should be pronounced. We were to write the poem in ABCB pattern and use Quatrameter and trimeter...I picked chickens to write about because I wanted to keep it simple and not too in-depth to think about.

It turned out sorta sad and, umm...not so much gruesome as just...disturbing? Maybe. I personally think it's well-written, but it's gonna be really weird to read it aloud to my class....
Oh well. They should know I'm not quite normal by now.
And so, without further ado, my poem...if you want to match the first verse (or whatever verse) of piano man to my poem you'll be able to figure out the accenting...but there's no need. It's fine without it, too.
(Also....I've never had a chicken named Cassidy...and we don't slaughter our chickens (not ourselves, anyway, and we don't eat them) but we did have a chicken die last week. Fiona #1 (#'s 2, 3, and 4 are still alive ;)), rest in peace)

Just step in the mind of a chick a bit
Yes, I do mean a bird
The small, yellow fluffy kind
The ones whose mind’s a bit blurred

Born with so little in their brain
Yet always so full of joy
Not a care to be seen inside of them
Considering that they’ll be destroyed

Their life begins in a hatchery
Where millions like them begin
It’s big and it’s loud and it’s boisterous
They’re each sorted into a bin

One wee little chick named Cassidy
Is put into a crate
Other little birds are with her too
Fulfilling the thing we call fate

Through trucks and planes she’s shipped along
She winds up at a farm in Kentucky
She grows up to become a layer hen
And thanks God that her life is so lucky

A few years pass and her laying slows
She thinks it’s her time to retire
This peaceful thought flees from her mind
When the farmer appears with a desire

He picks her up and carries her out
Of the coop she’s come to love
Her mind’s filled with fear and anxiety
When she finds that she’s not so beloved

They find the stone of no return,
She heard of it time and again
Now Cassidy’s head is on the block
And she wishes she wasn’t a hen

Her short, puny life flashes before her eyes
And she knows life will come to a stop
The blade of the ax flashes quickly down
And Cassidy’s a regular crop.

Such ends the life of a brilliant hen
Her egg laying was so divine
Cassidy’s soul is now in peace
We thank her for being so fine

Fog

I was never made to write poetry...I don't really mind reading it too much, but I'm terrible at writing it myself. In 6th grade we had to write a "poetry book" and mine was...horrible...but anyway, we were told in English to compare an emotion to a thing, like a window, leaf, grass, crayon, etc. This is what I came up with; my measly attempt at poetry...I know, I shouldn't try again...lol:

The fog is there as soon as one gets up
in the morning.
It hits as soon as the blinds open,
wiping away the innocent feelings of sleep.

Gray, damp, lingering
A sheet of feeling that hides other,
sunny emotions.
The fog lifts as the day goes by,
hidden beneath the sun of distractions,
but it always comes back in the mornings.
Depressing.
Optimism is scarce in the fog of guilt.

Disclaimer: I don't actually feel guilty about anything...I merely thought of guilt when I thought of fog, and, voila, there's the poem...I guess I could of thought of allergies, but that would have lead me to writing about Claritin Clear, so no-go...
:D

Miss Daisy-Mae--a Memoir

So, this is a memoir I had to write recently for English class...Actually, I'm handing it in tomorrow...I'll try to remember to let you know what grade I get...

Squish, smush, snort. These sounds met my ears as she cantered around me in the mud and snow. It was blustery cold that day, April 17, 2007, the day my dream came true. You could find me standing in a small corral at Storie Stables, a private horse farm a little out of the town I lived in. This place, the place my 12 year old eyes first laid eyes on her, was windy, bitterly cold, as it was the last winter storm of the year. The weather seemed to have decided to work really hard at freezing everything solid and turning the world all white for the last time before spring hit. In the midst of this storm my mother brought me here to take a look at a horse whose “For Sale” ad I’d seen on the internet. She was a cute little horse, still fuzzy with her winter coat and chestnut brown, with a crooked, penguin-shaped white stripe down her face. She was a stubborn, feisty little mare, but I was a stubborn kid, and wouldn’t admit that she was a tad bit more to handle then I was used to. Anyway, here we were, the horse and I, her cantering in a circle around me, driven along by my repeated snaps of the whip. My eyes and body circled around and around watching her nimble legs navigate the slick, muddy footing.

My horse-back riding Aunt Daniela rode the dark-colored horse and had quite a ride, as the mare refused to do half of the things asked of her. Soon, I mounted her, expecting an equally challenging ride, but instead the little horse calmed right down and listened to me, as if she knew it was important.

The world was quiet, white, and cold until Jean, the owner of the Quarter Horse I rode, asked “Would you like to try her outside?”

“Sure,” I responded, nodding bravely. Tears welled up in my eyes as my mother’s voice broke the stillness:

“Should I write a check?”

I’d taken riding lessons since I was a little four year old riding a welsh pony. Did I want to have my own horse? Well, that’s like asking a man about to die of hunger if he’d like some bread! Ok, so maybe not that dramatic, but it was close. Of course I wanted a horse!

Sitting astride the little mare, I grinned, hot tears running down my chilled cheeks, and nodded. All those years of wishing for a pony over the candles on my birthday cake had paid off. My dream had come true: Daisy was mine.