Now I'll Never Be Able to Finish That Poem to Bob

by Paul Violi

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December 30, 2011

Now I'll never be able to finish that poem to Bob
that takes off of a poem by Bob
where he's looking out the Print Center window
at a man in a chicken suit
handing out flyers on Houston Street.
Mine has Plato saying man is a featherless biped
and Aristophanes slamming a plucked chicken
on the table and declaring the definition apt but flawed
and it ends with Francis Bacon
dedicated empiricist
experimenting with frozen food
stopping his carriage in a snowstorm
and hopping out to stuff a chicken with snow
It worked but Bacon got pneumonia and died
Without making a pun on bringing home the bacon
the poem closes on Bob saving Bacon's life
with chicken soup. It would have been a long poem
and it would have made a lot of sense
and shown why I believe Bob Hershon is a wise man.