In The Chicken Joint – A Satirical Poem

Just ordinary people leading ordinary lives
Just pink and brown and white folk
Snacking on their chicken
Chomping at their chips
Sucking on their softdrinks
And mucking up their fingers
The coleslaw a gooey mess shoved aside.
What sort of people come here?
Why so many on their own?
Has that lonely woman had a row?
And those two fat elderly guys – no one to cook for them,
No home to go to, so fast food must do.
What about the shrimp in the corner
Pushing bits around her plastic tray –
Why do we pay to sit in this concentration camp canteen?
Why have the taste for false food – fast food – call it what you like.
What happened to the chicken pecking at the ground?
What happened to the saving up of slops
And the clucking in the yard?
Poor old chicken – coated in batter and fried ‘til he’s thoroughly dead
(Atleast we can choose to donate our organs to save the lives of others)
This poor guy, who gave away his life
To be buried in pieces – on a plastic journey to nowhere.
Poor chap!  Did anyone warn him of the trip he would endure :
Freezer to frying pan to plastic wrapper to manure?
Did anyone tell him that he was dying to kill others
With his nutritionless flesh and preserved killer fat?
Would he grin at the thought?
See how they eat!
Thanks.  I’ll have a Coke.

 

  

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Holly M Maxwell

Written during a tube strike in London, on 16 June 1989.

The satire was indicative of the mood many were in at the time,
and irony flows through the words like moulten lava …
the author was fully aware of the dangers of softdrinks too, even then.

 

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© Holly M Maxwell Boydell

All rights reserved.

 

 

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For a list of poems by Holly M Maxwell Boydell, please visit the Poetry page at
https://thehollytreetales.wordpress.com/poetry/ 

 

 

 

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