This is a re-edited version of a poem I posted some time back. When asked why I wrote/posted this poem, I was a bit stumped. I am not a vegetarian. I used to see this years ago in my childhood; it was ugly, but we took it as normal life. It's not a scene many are likely to see now. So the answer: I think it tugs at a deeply buried conviction that animals have greater awareness and understanding than we have ever given them credit for; and the only logical upshot to that is that our brutal treatment of them needs to end.
To The Slaughter House
White-filled socket, eye twisted; its contorted,
steaming body straining away from that room.
At the end of a rope taut to the straightness of cane,
haunches working, legs thrashing, sliding in shit;
and men flat out, dragging, pushing the heifer
towards the slaughter-house doorway.
Roaring, terrified as humans are; that same recognition,
same fight, same blood gut muscle response, same horror;
and men, angular to their brutal task: dragging, pushing, hauling.
At the end of the rope, its head straining upward; the tongue,
extended from its mouth, tasting the stench of death,
and the horror of its flagging resistance.
