This turkey really should have seen it coming.
This turkey never read the Straight Dope, and drowned in the rain.
This turkey ran with scissors.
This turkey forgot to look both ways.
This turkey studied chemistry
This turkey is no more
For what it thought was H2O
was H2SO4
Edit: it looks like someone already did the H2SO4 joke. On the first page. My bad.
This turkey licked itself and died of salmonella.
This turkey thought it was safe to hide in Paradise.
This turkey was killed by a man in Reno just to watch him die.
This turkey stole John Wick’s car and… uh… killed his dog.
This turkey was playing a fowl game of chicken and forgot to duck. He died mad as a wet hen.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of Thanksgiving day fulfilled—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my freezer door.
“’Tis some leftover,” I muttered, “tapping at my freezer door—
And this turkey must be killed.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak November;
And each separate dying ember made me think of turkey grilled.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost recipe—
For the rare and well done recipe for the chief who is unskilled—
And this turkey must be killed.
And the silken, sad, uncertain recipe of each frozen turkey
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic flavors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some leftovers falling, falling on my freezer door—
Maybe lamb or beef or some ham and eggs deviled;—
And this turkey must be killed.”
Presently my soulhunger grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Lamb,” said I, “or cooked beef, truly your flavor I adore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently I heard rapping,
And so faintly I heard tapping, tapping at my freezer door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the freezer fill;—
And this turkey must be killed.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the and the freezer was so stilled,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Killed?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Killed!”—
And this turkey must be killed.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my freezer frozen;
Let me see, then, what there at is, and this mystery extilled—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery extilled;—
’And this turkey must be killed!”
Open here I flung the door open, when, with many a swear word spoken,
In there stepped a drunken turkey of the saintly days distilled;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my freezer refilled—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my freezer refiiled—
And this turkey must be killed.
Then this stupid bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient turkey wandering from the Nightly shrill—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s deviled shrill!”
Quoth the Turkey “Never kill.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his freezer refill—
Bird or beast upon the Wild Turkey above his freezer refill.
With such name as “Never Kill.”
But the Turkey, sitting lonely on the whiskey bottle, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did out trill.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have died before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have died before.”
Then the turkey said “Never Kill.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only parsley and dill
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden billed—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden billed
Of ‘Never—Never Kill’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and freezer door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird unchilled—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird unchilled
Meant in croaking “Never Kill.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the frig light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-giblet lining with the frig light gloating o’er,
It shall press, ah, never kill!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, spiced up from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “as God is my witness—I thought turkeys could fly
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of the grill;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this the grill!”
Quoth the Turkey “Never Kill.”
“Turkey!” said I, “bird of evil!—turkey still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here unskilled,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I distill—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I distill!”
Quoth the Raven “Never Kill.”
“Turkey!” said I, “bird of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both fulfill—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant flaming grill,
It shall clasp a tasty turkey whom the chefs have name devilled—
Clasp a rare and radiant bird whom the chefs have name devilled.”
Quoth the Turkey “Never Kill.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s untilled shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the spot above my freezer door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my freezer door!”
Quoth the Turkey “Never Kill.”
And the Turkey, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the bottle of Wild Turkey just above my freezer door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating and unwilled
Shall be thinking “Never Kill?”
wild applause
This turkey invested in Canadian cannabis companies without doing its due diligence.
This turkey forgot its toque when waiting for the late-night bus.
This turkey annoyed Doug Ford.
This turkey was caught in a long-running sex scandal involving three elected representatives, a Weimaraner, and 37 grams of icing sugar.
This turkey wasn’t killed. It walked out of the coop very much alive.
This turkey was killed in a fistfight with 15 Saudi chickens.
This turkey was killed by accident during interrogation.
Okay, okay, this turkey’s death was ordered by Farmer Brown. But I still stand by him. Corn prices are down 12%!
I saw the best turkeys of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the barnyards at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night
This turkey ate romaine lettuce.
This turkey tried to visit North Sentinel Island to spread the word of the Great Turkey in the Sky.
This turkey didn’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve.
This turkey was shot after being caught messing around with another man. And that ain’t too cool.
This turkey was shot but I swear it was in self-defense.
This turkey lived its life like a candle in the wind.
This turkey took it all too far but, boy, could he play guitar.
This turkey in the straw suffocated.
Corrected a few errors.
Thank you.
This turkey has seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
This turkey ran into Michael Myers on Halloween.
This turkey ran into Freddy Kruger in a dream.
This turkey ran into Jason Voorhees on Friday the 13th.
This turkey lacked comportment.
This turkey was killed and eaten by Jeffrey Dahmer. And, NO, I am not going into detail about what else Dahmer did to this turkey.