HAS ANYONE SEEN THEM **** CHICKENS!

Outside

the window

is

a

William Carlos Williams

poem

coming

into being.

There...is

the red wheelbarrow

glazed

with rainwater

minus

the chickens

who

have wandered

off

as if not knowing

they are needed

to fulfil

the poem

upon which

so much

depends

(gone to lay an egg

as chickens do)

& as I turn away

they march back into view

taking up

their poetical positions.

The living poem

even has its seasons

appearing

to me

covered in snow

dazzling

in bright bright

sunshine.

Sometimes

(for my own

surreal reasons)

I paint the wheel barrow

a yellow or blue

or

blue

with yellow spots

or...

My wife

laughs at me

& says: 'Oh...you! '

The wheelbarrow

long gone

to seed

now

sleeps quietly

upside down

beside the hen house.

Flowers

growing up

between its broken

wheel

covered

in fallen leaves

it dreams

of being a real

poem.

I smile.

'Now, where's

those **** chickens

...gone? '