All zoo’s are past their sell by date
A long long time ago
Concentration camps for souls
Prison camps that show
Wild animals in cages
Locked away they be
Prisoners who were not allowed
To be as born YEA free
A new place at NPumalanga
A zoo facility
Owned by Hennie and Melanie
Maritz, who it seems to me
Are apparently imagining
That stealing Them from Nature
From a living Place
Isn’t cruel or evil
Or even a disgrace
Zoo’s attempt to humanise
It’s irreverence and wrong
Their heads are in the fucking clouds
That’s where they belong
Caged up in a City somewhere
Leave the souls alone
Kruger is just up the road
That’s why so many moan
About the likes of idiots
Who want to start a zoo
And probably start breeding
Or harvesting, it’s true
Stealing from the ungodly
Desecrating life
It’s insolent and scoffing
Causing them much strife
It’s scornful and unflattering
You should leave well alone
Animals born to be wild
The acrimony is known
Throughout the world where prisons
Some around call Zoo’s
They are vulgar they are unholy
And just awful news
South Africa should know better
With the wildness all around
What the hell are they playing at
Nothing there is sound
Unless it’s just a cover
For the bloody lion bone trade
In it for the money
A vile purposeful raid
Ban these ruddy spectacles
No one wants to see
Wild souls locked in cages
And staring out at thee
Waiting for their dead meat
And anti biotic pills
Their family life is at an end
It just gives me the chills.
Rex Tyler is a Poet, Campaigner, former owner of an organic shop of 30 years, and Public Speaker living in Berkhamsted, UK.