CHICKEN N DUMPLINS

This poem seems rather long.  Where can I cut it?  Any other suggestions?  My great grand son, age seven, thinks it is a "giggler."   Dewell

CHICKEN N DUMPLINS

Preacher's coming
To Sunday supper

Chicken N Dumplins
tonight for sure

Catch Big Red
wring his neck

Watch him dance
'round the yard

Dunk him down
in scalding water

Nothing stinks
like hot wet feathers

Roll up paper
light one end

Singe hair off and
burn pinfeathers

Gut him plumb out
Ma takes over

Simmer him long
tender him up

Make drop biscuits
bile 'em in broth

Mighty long grace
by a grateful guest

Soppin leavins
larrapin good

Poults 'n pullets
looking a little lonely

-Dewell H. Byrd

CHICKEN 'N DUMPLINS

Catch Big Red
wring his neck

Watch him dance
'round the yard

Dunk him down
in scalding water

Singe hair off 
and burn pinfeathers

Gut him plumb out
Ma takes over

Simmer him long
Tender him up

Make drop biscuits
bile 'em in broth (not sure about bile/boil . . . maybe all poem use vernacular?)

Soppin' leavins'
larrapin' good

Poults 'n pullets
looking a little lonely (not sure about this stanza)

Preacher's coming
to Sunday supper

-Dewell H. Byrd

I must have hit New Topic.  Apologies.  Chicken/Dumplings is about your poem, of course.  Bear with me.

Let's see if there was anything else.  Oh, do you know a square-dance song?  The rhythm could be like that!   It'd smooth it and keep it fun. 

No prelim the way Todd started it.  And we readers are right there with you!  

Keep your fun spirit about it.  When you finish with it, I think you and your g.  grandson are going to really like it! 

Thanks for sharing it, Dewell.

I vote with Pat on loving the couplets.  Todd's edit gets right to the heart of the poem.  I say leave the poults 'n pullets in the henhouse and return the Roll up paper stanza.  I like that image! 

I had to look up larrapin' and I grew up smack dab in the middle of Arkansas.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  As Aunt Nellie would say, Well, for garden seed.

Dewell,  Brings back growin' up memories.  My brothers and I caught many a young rooster on Saturday afternoon for Mama to pluck and singe and make ready for a fried chicken dinner on Sunday .  We used the chopping ax at our house. With that you had to hold the wings and feet or it could get pretty messy.  My aunt would wring the neck. I think the shortened version that Todd submitted was more to the point. With "Old Red" dumplins would have been the meal since he would have been too tough to fry.  I do think the "poults and pullets" is more for filler. It sticks more to the point without it.  Good poem.  Dennis