The Faroese if you please

1200 years ago
they began whaling
long finned pilot whales
is what they caught
“grindalap” means whale
slaughter in Faroese
and anyone can take part
and they’ve taught

each other, how to drive
the creatures to the shore
and cut them up
for that is how its done
babies, pregnant females
torn a’sunder, for them
it just appears, well so much fun

the kid’s crowd round
and poke and scratch their bodies
the babies are pulled out
and thrown away
no respect for life
Its just despicable
Don’t tell me this is culture
when they pay

so a high price,
these souls
who swim the ocean
brutal the behaviour of the few
orange trousers we don’t want to notice
yellow jackets,we are sick of you

I’d hide away if I were you
not let the camera’s roll
whilst you are bending tearing out
another little soul.
I know the land is rocky and you must
live on fish,
but how you catch
and kill these pilot whales
well I just wish

It was not, with such brutality
without respect for life
in front of children
encouraging them to also
use their knife
to witness all this hacking
this vile distraught attacking
of a handsome soul who really
should still be
in the wide blue ocean
with all its family members
instead its lying dead for all to see

these poor souls packed
with mercury and other
vile imaginings
are cut up
and are eaten, sadly they
will pass this rotten toxin
to your people and time alone
will determine when they pay
mercury is very very toxic
and man of course,
must now be sorry for
he so pollutes the ocean
with muck that he unloads
and that that will taint
their flesh for evermore

50,000 or so live and die there
the collective psyche seemingly to be
the culture and tradition is of whaling
the bulk of what they eat comes from the sea
air dried lamb and sea birds and potatoes
appear to be the food that they like best
and whale meat packed with mercury
is apparently
their favourite food and in it
they invest

time and patience cutting, drying, freezing
and cooking, and no doubt the mercury
will kill the old consumers rather quicker
than they’d like
and if that’s the outcome, well it has to be
the law of karma catches those who cross her
man pollutes the ocean with his muck
man then kills the predators, that have absorbed
his garbage
and really folk have had their share of luck

The poor old Pilot Whales I suppose go through it
every year the pods will have to be
slaughtered by these people who really don’t know better
Until there are, just no more, in the sea