ANIMAL POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON, ABE LINCOLN, G B SHAW ETC


(Animal poems will be part of the curriculum in many college, high school,
community and other poetry courses) (Please download on
nontree, rice, cotton, recycled or scrap paper)


THE BEAR HUNT

- President Abraham Lincoln-

A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
Lies desert in thy brain.

When first my father settled here,
'Twas then the frontier line:
The panther's scream, filled night with fear
And bears preyed on the swine.

But wo for Bruin's short lived fun,
When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun,
For vengeance, at him fly.

A sound of danger strikes his ear;
He gives the breeze a snuff;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
And seeks the tangled rough.

On press his foes, and reach the ground,
Where's left his half munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around,
And find his fresh made trail.

With instant cry, away they dash,
And men as fast pursue;
O'er logs they leap, through water splash,
And shout the brisk halloo.

Now to elude the eager pack,
Bear shuns the open ground;
Th[r]ough matted vines, he shapes his track
And runs it, round and round.

The tall fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice,
Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged fice,
Are yelping far behind.

And fresh recruits are dropping in
To join the merry corps:
With yelp and yell,--a mingled din--
The woods are in a roar.

And round, and round the chace now goes,
The world's alive with fun;
Nick Carter's horse, his rider throws,
And more, Hill drops his gun.

Now sorely pressed, bear glances back,
And lolls his tired tongue;
When as, to force him from his track,
An ambush on him sprung.

Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
And fully is in view.
The dogs, new-fired, by the sight,
Their cry, and speed, renew.

The foremost ones, now reach his rear,
He turns, they dash away;
And circling now, the wrathful bear,
They have him full at bay.

At top of speed, the horse-men come,
All screaming in a row,
"Whoop! Take him Tiger. Seize him Drum."
Bang,--bang--the rifles go.

And furious now, the dogs he tears,
And crushes in his ire,
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
With eyes of burning fire.

But leaden death is at his heart,
Vain all the strength he plies.
And, spouting blood from every part,
He reels, and sinks, and dies.

And now a dinsome clamor rose,
'Bout who should have his skin;
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows,
This prize must always win.

But who did this, and how to trace
What's true from what's a lie,
Like lawyers, in a murder case
They stoutly argufy.

Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood,
Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood,
Arrives upon the spot.

With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair--
Brim full of spunk and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear,
And shakes for life and death.

And swells as if his skin would tear,
And growls and shakes again;
And swears, as plain as dog can swear,
That he has won the skin.

Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee--
Nor mind, that now a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be,
Conceited quite as you.

(The bears and their protectors do not
like this poem. They are slaughtered now
in Canada where the govt. pays to promote
hunting, They are murdered by serial
trophy seeking stalkers in AK, NY, NJ, PA
and several other states.)


UNSEEN THEY SUFFER

Unseen they suffer
Unheard they cry
In agony they linger
In loneliness they die.

(unknown author..
poem about laboratory
animals..

http://www.stopanimaltests.com)



WE ARE THE LIVING GRAVE OF MURDERED BEASTS

by George Bernard Shaw



We are the living graves of murdered beasts
Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites
We never pause to wonder at our feasts
If animals, like men, can possibly
have rights
We pray on Sundays that we may have light
To guide our footsteps on the path we
tread
We're sick of war We do not want to
fight
The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread
And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead
Like carrion crows we live and feed on meat
Regardless of the suffering and pain
We cause by doing so. If thus we treat
Defenseless animals for sport or gain
How can we hope in this world to attain
the PEACE we say we are so anxious for
We pray for it o'er hecatombs of slain
To God, while outraging the moral law
Thus cruelty begets its offspring: war.

(Some believe that George Bernard Shaw ghostwrote
at least one of the books of the Booth who founded
the Salvation Army)
(The Army has lapsed from the vegetarian diet of
General Bramwell Booth.. which was based on the
teachings of Christ)



THE GARDEN

-William Cowper-



Well--one at least is safe. One shelter'd hare
has never heard the sanguinary yell
of cruel man, exulting in her woes.
Innocent partner of my peaceful home,
Whom ten long years' experience of my care
Has made at last familiar; she has lost
Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,
Not needdful here, beneath a roof like mine.
Yes--thou may'st eat they bread, and lick the hand
That feeds thee; thou may'st frolic on the floor
At evening, and at night retire secure
To thy straw couch, and slumber unalarm'd;
For I have gain'd the confidence, have peldg'd
All that is human in me to protect
Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
If I survive thee I will dig thy grave;
And, when I place thee in it, sighing, say,
I knew at least one hare that had a friend.




THE OWL CRITIC

"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were reading
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,
How flattened the head, how jammed down the neck is--
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis!

"I make no apology;
I've learned owleology,
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown, Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughing stock all over town!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"I've studied owls,
And other night fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true!
An owl cannot roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That can't turn out so!
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!

"Mister Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
"Examine those eyes,
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down;
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"With some sawdust and bark
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old bat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather;
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."

Just then with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic,
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
"Your learning's at fault, this time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

by James T. Fields


AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE

-by William Blake-

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-**** clipped and armed for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy's foot.
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright
And returned to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes Revenge! in realms of death.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plough
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
A riddle or the cricket's cry
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

THE PRAYER OF THE DONKEY

O God, who made me to
trudge along the road
always,
to carry heavy loads always
and to be beaten
always!
Give me great courage and gentleness.
One day let somebody understand me--
that I may no longer want to weep
because I can never say what
I mean
and they make fun of me.
Let me find a juice thistle--
and make them give me time to pick it.
And Lord, one day, let me find again
my little brother at the Christmas crib.

Amen

(editor's note) and my sister who
carried Christ on Palm Sunday


by Carmen Bernos De Gasztold

passed on by to poster by
Caroline Gilbert of Fund For Animals

http://fund.org


THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD


-Wallace Stevens-

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

(most of us have occasionally lapsed into
referring to animals as objects .. 'it' rather than 'he' or 'she')





REACHABLE STAR or
HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD IN FIVE HOURS

-S N Shriver-

Henry went to hospital
Twas Bethesda Naval
and took a picture of an ape
in a restraining chair.
And took it to an international
picture wire
called Black Star
which sent it round the world..
and Gandhi saw and knew
that violated was the treaty
.. and she cancelled monkey export
.. because Henry in 5 hours
.. cared to reach for
.. one bright and reachable... star!


(to Henry Spira, student of Peter Singer,
whose genius compassion and Archimedes
Lever caused his teacher to write about him)





ON THE MOVE

-Thom Gunn-


The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows
Some hidden purpose, and the gush of birds
That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows,
Have nested in the trees and undergrowth.
Seeking their instinct, or their pose, or both,
One moves with an uncertain violence
Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense
Or the dull thunder of approximate words.

On motorcycles, up the road, they come:
Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boy,
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.
In goggles, donned impersonality,
In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust,
They strap in doubt--by hiding it, robust--
And almost hear a meaning in their noise.

Exact conclusion of their hardiness
Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts
They ride, directions where the tires press.
They scare a flight of birds across the field:
Much that is natural, to the will must yield.
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes.

It is part solution, after all.
One is not necessarily discord
On Earth; or damned because, half animal,
One lacks direct instinct, because one wakes
Afloat on movement that divides and breaks.
One joins the movement in a valueless world,
Crossing it, till, both hurler and the hurled,
One moves as well, always toward, toward.

A minute holds them, who have come to go:
The self-denied, astride the created will.
They burst away; the towns they travel through
Are home for neither birds nor holiness,
For birds and saints complete their purposes.
At worse, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.


THE PIG KILLING SCENE IN JUDE THE OBSCURE

- by Thomas Hardy-

THE time arrived for killing the pig which Jude and his wife had
fattened in their sty during the autumn months, and the butchering
was timed to take place as soon as it was light in the morning,
so that Jude might get to Alfredston without losing more than
a quarter of a day.
The night had seemed strangely silent. Jude looked out of the window
long before dawn, and perceived that the ground was covered with snow--
snow rather deep for the season, it seemed, a few flakes still falling.
"I'm afraid the pig-killer won't be able to come," he said to Arabella.
"Oh, he'll come. You must get up and make the water hot,
if you want Challow to scald him. Though I like singeing best."
"I'll get up," said Jude. "I like the way of my own county."
He went downstairs, lit the fire under the copper, and began
feeding it with bean-stalks, all the time without a candle,
the blaze flinging a cheerful shine into the room; though for
him the sense of cheerfulness was lessened by thoughts on
the reason of that blaze--to heat water to scald the bristles
from the body of an animal that as yet lived, and whose voice
could be continually heard from a corner of the garden.
At half-past six, the time of appointment with the butcher,
the water boiled, and Jude's wife came downstairs.
"Is Challow come?" she asked.
"No."
They waited, and it grew lighter, with the dreary light of a snowy dawn.
She went out, gazed along the road, and returning said, "He's not coming.
Drunk last night, I expect. The snow is not enough to hinder him, surely!"
"Then we must put it off. It is only the water boiled for nothing.
The snow may be deep in the valley."
"Can't be put off. There's no more victuals for the pig.
He ate the last mixing o' barleymeal yesterday morning."
"Yesterday morning? What has he lived on since?"


--

"Nothing."
"What--he has been starving?"
"Yes. We always do it the last day or two, to save bother with the innerds.
What ignorance, not to know that!"
"That accounts for his crying so. Poor creature!"
"Well--you must do the sticking--there's no help for it.
I'll show you how. Or I'll do it myself--I think I could.
Though as it is such a big pig I had rather Challow had done it.
However, his basket o' knives and things have been already sent
on here, and we can use 'em."
"Of course you shan't do it," said Jude. "I'll do it, since it must be done."
He went out to the sty, shovelled away the snow for the space
of a couple of yards or more, and placed the stool in front,
with the knives and ropes at hand. A robin peered down at
the preparations from the nearest tree, and, not liking
the sinister look of the scene, flew away, though hungry.
By this time Arabella had joined her husband, and Jude, rope in hand,
got into the sty, and noosed the affrighted animal, who, beginning
with a squeak of surprise, rose to repeated cries of rage.
Arabella opened the sty-door, and together they hoisted
the victim on to the stool, legs upward, and while Jude held
him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs
to keep him from struggling.
The animal's note changed its quality. It was not now rage,
but the cry of despair; long-drawn, slow and hopeless.
"Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had this
to do!" said Jude. "A creature I have fed with my own hands."
"Don't be such a tender-hearted fool! There's the sticking-knife--
the one with the point. Now whatever you do, don't stick un
too deep."
"I'll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it.
That's the chief thing."
"You must not!" she cried. "The meat must be well bled,
and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score
if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that's all.
I was brought up to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps
un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying,
at least."
"He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat may look,"
said Jude determinedly. Scraping the bristles from the pig's upturned throat,
as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat; then plunged in the knife
with all his might.
"'Od damn it all!" she cried, "that ever I should say it!
You've over-stuck un! And I telling you all the time----"
"Do be quiet, Arabella, and have a little pity on the creature!"
"Hold up the pail to catch the blood, and don't talk!"
However unworkmanlike the deed, it had been mercifully done. The blood
flowed out in a torrent instead of in the trickling stream she had desired.
The dying animal's cry assumed its third and final tone, the shriek of agony;
his glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with the eloquently keen
reproach of a creature recognizing at last the treachery of those who had
seemed his only friends.
"Make un stop that!" said Arabella. "Such a noise will bring somebody or
other up here, and I don't want people to know we are doing it ourselves."
Picking up the knife from the ground whereon Jude had flung it, she slipped it
into the gash, and slit the windpipe. The pig was instantly silent, his dying
breath coming through the hole
"That's better," she said.
"It is a hateful business!" said he.
"Pigs must be killed."
The animal heaved in a final convulsion, and, despite the rope,
kicked out with all his last strength. A tablespoonful of black clot
came forth, the trickling of red blood having ceased for some seconds.
"That's it; now he'll go," said she. "Artful creatures--
they always keep back a drop like that as long as they can!"
The last plunge had come so unexpectedly as to make Jude stagger,
and in recovering himself he kicked over the vessel in which the blood


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



ANIMALS ARE PASSING FROM OUR LIVES

-Philip Levine-


It's wonderful how I jog
on four honed-down ivory toes
my massive buttocks slipping
like oiled parts with each light step.


I'm to market. I can smell
the sour, grooved block, I can smell
the blade that opens the hole
and the pudgy white fingers


that shake out the intestines
like a hankie. In my dreams
the snouts drool on the marble,
suffering children, suffering flies,


suffering the consumers
who won't meet their steady eyes
for fear they could see. The boy
who drives me along believes


that any moment I'll fall
on my side and drum my toes
like a typewriter or squeal
and shit like a new housewife


discovering television,
or that I'll turn like a beast
cleverly to hook his teeth
with my teeth. No. Not this pig.



http://www.poemhunter.com/philip-levine/poet-8952/


http://www.jewishveg.com




SHOOTING RATS AT THE BIBB COUNTY DUMP

-David Bottoms-

Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride
to the dump in carloads
to turn our headlights across the wasted field,
freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still
like dead beer cans.
Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow
into garbage, hide in old truck tires,
rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,
or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light
toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

It's the light they believe kills.
We drink and load again, let them crawl
for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.





THE BULL CALF

-Henry Bailey Stevens-

Well sonny! Come along,
Swinging your little tail!
This is the price you have to pay
for being born a male.

Moo moo old cow!
And start a hunger strike.
Lots of us have to do
Things that we don't like.

Lots of us have to suffer;
Don't let it spoil your meal
This is the price you have to pay
Somebody wants some veal.

Don't take it too hard, old cow;
I'm sorry you've got so wild;
But somebody's got an appetite
And wants to eat your child.


-Henry Bailey Stevens-
vegetarian author of THE RECOVERY OF CULTURE




THE CATTLE TRAIN

Below my window goes the cattle train,
And stands for hours along the river park,
Fear, Cold, Exhaustion, Hunger, Thirst and
Pain;
Dumb brutes we call them - Hark!
The bleat of frightened mother -calling young,
Deep-throated agony, shrill frantic cries,
Hoarse murmur of the thirst-distended tongue
Up to my window rise.
Bleak lies the shore to northern wind and sleet,
In open-slatted cars they stand and freeeze
Beside the broad blue river in the heat
All waterless go these.
Hot, fevered, frightened, trampled, bruised
and torn;
Frozen to death before the ax descends;
We kill these weary creatures; sore and worn,
And eat them-- with our friends.


-Charlotte Perkins Gilman-




SADISTS

-Linn A. E. Gale-

I saw
A cruel cat
In heartless playfulness
Poking back and forth
A tiny helpless birdlet,
Too young for feathers,
Too weak to peep in protest,
Until finally the purring feline
Thrust the wee thing
Head-first, into her mouth,
And sat crunching contenedly
Quivering flesh and thread-like bones.
I watched
Sadistic humans
In blase comfort
Neatly slice carcasses
Of beings that loved life and felt pain
No less than they.
And meanwhile I observed
Puzzled wondering why
So many heads are hollow,
So many mean are walking beasts,
So much brutality blots the land,
Such epidemics of violence,
Such vertigos of sensuality
Inoculate and intoxicate the race.






ISAIAH

Isaiah 11:6-9 (King James Version)
(re the previous poem... prophecies of nonviolent cats)



6 The lion also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.



A MODERN GOLDEN CALF

-Earnest A Webbe-

In Cleveland's toughtest quarter,
The famous "Tenderloin"
(Fit namesake for the choicest cut
Of steak for honest coin)
Where dives and tough resorts abound,
Saloons and salry brokers,
Gambling joints and "uncle shops"
And homes for highway chokers,
You'll find a building tall and square
Low'ring o'er the railroad,
Which brings from peaceful pastures fair,
Poor creatures by the trainload;
A smell of blood makes thick the air,
Mute terror in each creature's stare-
Brute men running everywhere,
Their robes with blood aglare!
And on the building's lofty roof,
Like Aaron's calf of old
There rears, that every eye may see
A steer of burnished gold!
For ever this sacrifice goes on
And Christians bend the knee
Nor stop to think their honest coin
Sustains idolatry!

-Earnest A Webbe-



THE MOUSE TRAP





-Robert Wallace
in the New Yorker-

http://www.newyorker.com



A mouse the trap had slapped on, but not caught
stood in the floor
bloody -whiskered, in the curious light
snapped on from the kitchen door

Grooved in the gray skull-fur
where the steel spring banged him,
blood from his ears, and one of 2 bead-black eyes
popped almost out, and hanging

looking his bad luck, he sheered through doors.
rooms. halls, waddled along walls,
was exposed behind dressers,
hobbling with the load of his pain through falls.

bumps, skics, until the portable (peaces-can)
prison (from the trash sack) fell
into place, changing the hellishly lighted chambers
to a pleasurably blackened cell

as comfortable as his hole, but showing
a scar of light around the rim.
A shirt cardboard slid under-moving floor
and gathered him

into the lurch and claw- slipping tilt and
ride of air, and bore
him giddy, sloping and scratching
out the back door

to the yellow porch lit and midnight lawn
and slid free his small terror
into the matty, spiny grass that held him like rails,
Shadowy, his executioner

choosing (over drowning or crushing)
the doubtful love of a gun,
loomed over him, unready, tall. Unsteadily
he tried to run and the world blurred, un-

til he sat gathering his shakes in the grass blades
The long-barrelled (22 target) revolver lowered
to arm's length
from the panting, furred bird-ribs not yet dead

and aimed, and fired-
six irregular shots
that drove deep their thunderous metal seeds
into the earth in spots

all around the tiny breath
they were meant for, spurting up yellow-brown
fountains of dir
as before some palace, circus: forest, pillars, a
kind of crown

in the noise and light of the murdering storm
That poor marksman, love
clicked, quietly
ticked, reloading, far, far, far above

the withered and dumb and dirt-daubled mouse
Then light and leaden rain
Stomped down again, and one blind iron tear
flooded all the sap of his pain

into the earth along with its leaving
indistinguishable in the churned-up lawn-
a flattened and sucked-out pelt
of half-buried once-mouse, now mouse-gone






ODE TO THE POOR MAN'S CRICKET

Although they steal my food
within the walls of my humble home
I endeavor never to be rude

And when I outen the lights
These peaceful creatures are free to roam
For even the meek
have their rights

-Tom Earley-



WHAT METHUSALEH ATE

-John Harvey Kellogg MD-

What Methusalah ate
was not on a plate..
For paradise meat* fruit.. as in Gen 1: 29
was delicious to eat

And kept him in finest condition
and twas hung on trees
and not made to please
the deadly Live Stock Commission

No fish was he fed
no blood did he shed
And he knew when he had
eaten enough

And so it is plain
He'd no cause to complain
Of steaks that were measly or tough

Or bearded beef grimy
Green moldy and slimy
Of cold -storage turkeys and putrid beefsteaks
With millions of colon germs
Hams full of trichina worms
And sausages writhing
with rheumatic aches

Old methusalah

(The Bible says the vegetarian Methusalah reached an age of
969 years)



(published in Vegetarian America by Karen Iacobbo)
(John Harvey Kellogg MD fought the meat cartels for many
decades)
(Today the Kellogg Corporation advertises flesh)




OF JOY AND RODENTS


Who is to say that being here is not glorious even
In the most squalid of existence; even in the streets
Festering with garbage, being here is a joyous thing.

Tell the blind woman, blind since birth, that joy is non
Existent; her hyper-extended senses would tell you that
She sensed and loved the tiny feet of mice eating her cheese.

The most visible of happiness occurs when, without the
Expectation of result, something explicable happens; and
That is, the unexpected joy that Sisyphus could not imagine.

For all the rats eating our grain and causing continual
Scourges, they teach us to value life as they endure the
Hatred and interminable tortures of laboratory animals.

Our age builds an enormous citadel of power; formless as
The extensive stress it exacts on us. It no longer respects any
Temples; however, the rat teaches us the temple of survival

The whole family of rodentia is our guru; from rabbits we
Learn to spawn our progeny; from squirrels we learn to
Economize in lean times and from mice we learn humility.

Their veins flow with existence without a Bill of Rights;
What makes us think that we have more entitlements; let
Us love our rodent brothers and chew on life as they do.


-Sai Grafio-

http://www.postpoems.com/members/kittymonkey





MAO TSE TUNG

"Genghis Khan, man of his epoch, ...
knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone.
Only today are we men of feeling."

MAO TSE TUNG

"Even the plum tree is pleased with snow and doesn't care
about freezing or dying houseflies."

-Mao Tse Tung-




EMILY DICKINSON

If I shouldn't be alive
When the robin come
Give the one in red cravat
A memorial crumb


MITE RIGHTS

-by J R L Fulkerson-

At the base of the eyelash
lives an invisible mite.
Ask not what your mite
can do for you
but what you can do for your mite.
And remember.. mite makes right.

TWELFTH NIGHT FRAGMENT

-by William Shakespeare-

He is a heavy eater of beef. Methinks it
doth harm to his wit.