I’m glad I’m a cat (at Christmas)

I’m a cat
and I live, in
the Butchers shop
I stay out in the
cutting room, where I
eat well, there is lots
of meat around the place
and at Christmas
I am lucky its my base

I’m sort of semi wild I am
for no one really loves me
picks me up, or strokes me
they often throw meat at me
Sheep, Cows Pigs are
always on the menu
they come in from
Smithfield every week
Chickens too are commonplace
But Turkeys just at Christmas
thats the time really thats the peak
300 birds come in, and are hung up
in the shed
its times like these when
I’m glad I’m not a Turkey
for if I was I know I
would be dead
the smell of rotting innards
is extraordinary
I hate it really, its the smell
of death
the bone bins often are crawling with
maggots
and when this happens
it really takes my breath
away,but still I count my lucky stars
at least
the rats and mice
are fair game still for me
they come around at night
when the snow has made it white
that’s when I chase them off
now constantly
I curl up in the cutting room
and sleep beneath the block
and so its fine
but living in a death house
with all the cutting instruments
does unlock
a fear along the line
for humans are a funny bunch
though cats are pretty safe
its most unlikely we would be lunch
but some will take a waif
Vietnamese and Chinese sometimes
stripped of all my precious fur
and they’d watch me just bleed out
tenderness or something
is what thats all about
torture on a scale
of terrible I call it, I
just thinking of it turns me pale
I wouldn’t want to die
All those handsome turkeys
hanging upside down
their necks and heads all droopy
their poor old feathered gown
is weeping, and is duller
than it was when they came in
this morning they will be prepared
Oh God I’m in a spin

all that life is wasted
those spirits will they stay
in the shed or in the cutting room
wow such dismay
chickens, capons,geese and ducks
gammons, hams oh dear
Christmas is a time of death
and of torture, do you hear?
And I just sit here hopeful
that I will get a treat
a nice bit of cooked chicken
that I do like to eat
sometimes the shop men
do it, at least at Christmas Time
How glad I am that I’m a cat
and able to write this rhyme

and if more of you were veggies
then the torture and the death
the vileness and the sadness
and the sickness in my breath
could be forestalled or even better
stopped for that would be
a much happier Christmas
for the farming crowd, and me