Collective Punishment Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Collective Punishment

A bird farmer had a stroke, paralyzed saw
himself being watched by a Plymouth hen,
it sat on the sill moving its head sideways
as birds tend to do. When satisfied that
the man was lame it jumped on to his bed,
pecked and slurped up his eyes like they
should be soft boiled eggs, then left.

The farmer lived, but since he could not
see or find the eye eater, he ordered all
birds and their eggs destroyed, and hen
houses bulldozed; alas, a few birds escaped.
The farmer planted sunflower on his land,
the survivors thrive at the edge of it, one
of them is a big, red Plymouth hen.