The Chicken Nest

The Chicken Nest

by Kelp

(for BGR, mon frere)

Two Yids
Branded from birth
Shlepping their tzuris
Kvetching and draying
Zingers and zuggers
For three score years
They sang their songs
Each in his own
Prison of feathers
A gift of old age it was
That brought them together. 

Zets, mein landsman, zets!

They sit face-to-face
Heart-to-heart
In The Chicken Nest
Two old roosters
Hen-pecked husbands
Flustered fathers
Worried brothers
Noble citizens of the world
Branded from birth
With the burdens
Of the sullied human enigma
Trying to solve the unsolvable
That stuff that makes you more meshiga.

Zets, mein landsman, zets!

This chicken soup
This cure-all, not
These noble, gentle
Poets won’t
Solve anything
With their writings
Their whinings
Their winnings
Their whiles
Least of all with their poetry
Solace still they’ll find
These two
In each other’s company.

Zets, mein landsman, zets!