Headless Chickens Poem by David Taylor

I heard today something deeply disturbing.
Some news which I somehow find
profoundly unnerving.
The scientist have improved
the chickens we farm.
Its now so much easier
to get them ready to eat.
With unnatural genes
they’ve changed their clothes, and developed,
chickens that don’t have any feathers!

They say it’s efficient; and not only that,
the chickens are happier in hot weather.
And did you know that they’re getting so fat
they cannot even walk or stand in the box
of the miniscule prison they’re penned in.
I know we like chicken but what do you think?
Do our scientists really have a leg to stand on.
When they tell us it’s so much better this way?

Well perhaps it is true but it don’t change the fact
that chickens are meant to have feathers.
So I ask myself this; and I don’t really jest.
Will birds of no feather
still flock together?
And will I wake in the night
having dreamt in a fright,
of a ghost of rose coloured daffodils?
And what on earth will be next:
Will they clone “headless chickens”,
those clever, scientific, humans!