Make It Rare

Red Meat, so sweet to eat?
Environmental damage at our feet.
So much crude oil, oats, and wheat,
to make a pound of sweet red meat.

By eating much less
of that animal flesh,
our poor friends to the south
have more grain to dole out.

With less meat on our plate,
we'll delay our fate.
Our hearts will beat stronger,
we'll have friends much longer.

Butcher, chop your meat.
Millions daily is no easy feat.
We're coming, coupon in hand,
to contaminate our glands.

Burger, fries and shake,
will we consumers ever wake?
Perhaps when land and fuel are gone,
the light of wisdom will come on.

J.T. Wolfe, New York

Put down that calf, thou Man of Flesh,
Put down that veal, thou Bloody man,
God's creatures are the wheels that mesh,
And He will eat you when He Can.

Unfrock thyself, thou Man of Blood,
Thou art but meat, and so are these,
And have been since before the Flood:
Go down on thy unbasted knees,

And ponder on Eternal Fires
And battered fish and slaughtered lambs.
Restrain thy animal desires,
Be cured - or God will smoke thy hams!

Gavin Ewart (1916- )

[On seeing a Priest eating veal]
from New Statesman, 14 August 1964

"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Rage in Heaven

If a robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage
How feels heaven when
Dies the millionth battery hen?

Spike Milligan (1918- )

Lines to be Said after Soup

With lentils, tomatoes and rice,
Olives and nuts and bread,
Why do I have to gnaw on a slice
Of something bloody and dead?

With honey, bananas and pear,
Oranges and corn and beet,
Why do I feel I must tear
Into some carcass meat?

How does my nose go astray?
What in my instinct warps,
That I have to ravish and slay
In order to feed on a corpse?

The Bull Calf

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 (1891-1976)

Living Graves

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 the pain
we cause by doing so, if thus we treat
defenceless 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.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Trust

Eyes look up trustingly,
adoringly
Instincts suggest feeding
time
Hours spent caring like a
daughter
Fattening the trust
you send to the Slaughter.

Dennis Joseph Fallen

Cows

The cows graze in the field beside this house,
Gentle friends, I wish them the right to a natural death
In dignified old age.

Yesterday I saw a farmer who looked just like a cow,
But ugly for being human;
His poor, thick, red head stood out fatly,
His slow movements bespoke ponderous thoughts.

Later we talked of cows' heads offered by butchers;
I wonder if dogs would tear at his boiled head?
Or if fussy English people would relish
His nicely boiled and compressed pink tongue
Between slices of white bread
For tea on the lawn?

And if they did, would they know the difference?
And if they did, would they, finally, care?

Rebecca Hall (1947 - )

Stupidity Street

I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For the people to eat,
Sold in the shops of
Stupidity Street.

I saw in vision
The worm in the wheat,
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat;
Nothing for sale in
Stupidity Street.

Ralph Hodgson, 1871-1962