Poem-A-Day: Day 396

Lambs to the Slaughter

To be delivered from a milk-crate
to passersby on a busy Chicago street in mid-July.

Dear sirs and madams giving attendance
to my speech that lacks some clear transcendence.
Allow me to shout about some issues
that have been rendering my thoughts askew.
I find I must address some serious
issues that have become imperious
when it comes to the millions now living
that will never die because their giving
lives have given life to countless others.
Oh dearest of my sisters and brothers,
please listen to the struggles of my plea.
I’m not one for words or the third degree,
and I’ve been guilty of the same offense
that I have come to argue civil defense.
I’ve eaten animals and watched them die
at my hands, all with little more than wry,
and witty quips about how the tongues fall
in similar retarded ways on all
dead beasts. I’m no god among the subjects
that I hold dominion over, the next
meal is all I’m guilty of searching for.
I mean no real harm, I’m simply poor.
No, my means for argument are zealous,
and far more repulsive than the jealous
few who think they know my pointed fervor.
They reside as the silent observer
listening to the whimpers and cat-calls
from those forgotten few locked in the stalls.
The animals that do not seek favor,
are the same that we have come to savor.
I’m not asking for much when it comes to
this matter, and I’m not asking for you
to stop or start eating meat. I’m merely
asking for you to do something clearly
not happening, clearly not being done.
I ask for respect, for those that are shunned,
and treated like shit in their coops and pens.
Treat them as a pet, or maybe a friend.
Let them observe some normal conditions
for living, go against the traditions 
of factory farming, give them freedom
to move, to live life before they succumb
to the harsh reality that they’ve been
bred for their meat. Their original sin
was nothing more than being bred for food,
and they’re in hell, there’s nothing to allude
to in this situation. Their lives are
force-fed to them  through tubes, it’s some bizarre
lack of life, nothing, except denial
of the same freedoms our pets find worthwhile.
 As a meat-eater I’m not asking much.
I’m not looking to convert you as such,
and because you’ve been such courteous guests
I ask that you listen to my request:
stop factory farming and show respect
to the animals that we’ve come to neglect.
There are ecological substitutes
to factory farming that don’t pollute
as much, and provide more adequate care
for the animals before they’re prepared
for the slaughter. There will never be one
correct and one wrong in this overdone
debate about whether one should eat meat
or go vegetarian. The deceit
is in the condition of animal
lives. They have no lives, only death corral.
They are lambs to the slaughter at our hands,
and we greet them with salt, and buttered pans.
I’ve left no time for questions, and my soap-
box speech is over. I can only hope
that my words did not fall on the deaf and
dumb ears that I find typically stand
in my audience, but you seem like smart
people. Spread my message as you depart.