We have a lot to thank the Guardian Newspaper for (Canned hunting is one thing)

South Africa has clearly
sunk into its own dark pit
its given up what moral stance
it had
for it sees fit
to support 160 farms
with the morals
that now purge
the life force of the country
expressed now in this dirge

that heightens some expectancy
and darkens others too
the need to raise Lions
in the hope of benefitting through
selling on to canned hunts
the callous waste that’s here
in the moment breaking records
captivity is clear

the trophy hunter phenomena
is growing by the day
thousands of Lions are slaughtered
in cold blood and how they pay
for being raised and hand reared
and their lives, sold to those
who apparently have the where for all
the bank roll that does pose

a great draw to the farmers
who breed or sell the game
who import these callous pseudo hunters
and truthfully inflame
every thoughtful animal lover
who ever did exist
canned hunting of course its called
a term we ought resist

that favours those who
heartlessly divulge the secrets and
raise the cubs and rake the scum
that poisons this fair land
importing cowards a plenty
ready to lay the cash
to have their special license
a wall hanging to trash

every moral code that ever
was I have to feel
South Africa has sunk down
in my estimation, real
time
and all its animals raised
on farms today
consigned to death
for money for human gain
the way

we lose ourselves
to my mind shows the shallowness
we possess
we sacrifice creation
we give those earthlings stress
we mess with their affection
their confidence, for they
can realize our evil
and understand the way

they have to remain aloof from us
for genuinely we
are a insult on this global sphere
for all humanity
trophy hunting holidaymakers
break my heart for, I
can’t abide their ugliness
their shallowness and why?

would a country stoop to levels
for their sanity is lost
blood money in the bloody banks
this karmic debt has cost
vast amounts of energy
this is a malaise
permeating every walk of life
just every phase

its a sickness now enveloping
those who do these things
hang a stuffed head on their walls
imagining that it brings
any particular kudos to anyone who sees
and who knows the brave soul
was drugged up to its eyeballs
if you please

lifeless because of money
ill gotten gains, may be
but souls are being lost
are being murdered, tragically
drawn into the miasma
that is man who has sunk into
a depraved state of existence
don’t let this capture you

in 7 years some 6000 trophies
were exported far and wide
to be stuck on some one’s rotten wall
the captured one’s denied
how they came to shoot the soul
the majesty of it all
the disregard for creation
with the morals of a ghoul

canned hunting is so sinful
and those farms who won’t admit
they are bringing down South Africa
the government saw fit
to try and stop this happening
but the farmers turned the screws
and the trophy hunters won their case
not particularly good news

we have to stand together
those animals abroad
being shot down as they are
they are seen as some reward
for South Africa but actually
in the passing of the years
their children will look back at them
their big eyes full of tears