Wrap'd

Once again the stories arise about the practices of American slaughterhouses that are raising quotas so fast that they don’t allow time for the animals that are used for food here to die before being cut apart. This last article I saw was in the Washington Post Weekly in June, 2001. Reporters do a horrible but necessary service to the world to bring such practices to the world’s attention and then it becomes a universal imperative that requires response from every person on the planet, every animal, every bird and insect, every plant, tree and bush, every rock must cry out against this ultimate insult of greed. Here is one of my responses in a poem:

WRAP'D

With clanking chain and shrieking rumble
and the cows that bellow loud
Oh the pigs do squeal
and they both cry tears
as they move on down the line
cut apart
while still alive
cut apart
before they died
eyeballs rolling, tongues out-thrashing
squealing, crying as they’re cut apart
alive so quotas can be met
and terror fills the air

Shopping carts that squeal and rumble
as they move on down the line
with corn flakes here, orange juice there
and cow remains all tightly wrap’d
in plastic, neat with feces, dirt
and terror also caught
and tightly wrap’d,
fancy and convenient,
so easy to take home

Expensive tires squish through the rain
and move on down the line they
carry home the nation’s bounty
Food for commerce, food for children,
but seldom ever food for thought
Harried mothers unwrap plastic,
cooking cow-parts for their family
setting on their kitchen counter
meat that’s filled with unseen terror
and feed their children silent screams.

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.