Before I went to school
\nI helped my father
\nlook after my animal friends, for he
\nwanted me to follow in his
\nfootsteps to be the man
\nhe’d always hoped I’d be
\nthe breadwinner, the one who kills
\nthe animals
\nlooks after them but when the time comes
\nhe
\nIs strong enough to kill them
\nand to gut them, and to skin them
\nor to pluck them for his tea<\/p>\n
I foraged for the best food
\nwhich was wild food
\nI kept them clean
\nand watered them each day
\nreturned their love
\nby sharing with them
\nplayful times
\nand to kill them when
\nmy father named the day
\nI was 5 or 6 I believe
\nand in the beginning
\nI loved the Rabbits and the Chickens too
\nthe last thing that I wanted
\never, honest truth, was to break
\ntheir necks,it was not
\nthe thing to do <\/p>\n
My parents were not rich
\nnot like so many
\nwe didn’t go out much
\nand had no TV
\neven when I went to school
\nmy father was still pretty poor
\nso we had chickens and it just had to be
\nI think that seed of life
\nbegan from those early days
\nI use to sit and hold the Rabbits, and
\ncould understand their ways
\nYes every one of them
\nhad a different character
\nevery one responded
\nin my hand<\/p>\n
some were very affectionate
\nsome were quite aloof
\nbut all of them were my
\nfriends anyway
\nand to imagine that I could
\nbe their executioner
\nthat I could snuff them out
\nwhen my dad said
\nthat I could look into the eyes
\nof “Bertie” or of snuffles
\nand cuff them really hard
\ntill they were dead<\/p>\n
then take his knife and gut and skin them
\nwhilst still warm
\nto me it smacked too hellish
\nto be right
\nI told my dad I wouldn’t
\nkill my little friends
\nnor eat them
\neither, and I do remember the day
\nwe had that fight
\nBut Dad called me a “poofta”
\n“just a girlie”
\n“I never thought you had it
\nin yer lad”
\nYou treat those bloody chickens
\nfar too gentle
\nkick the buggers show them
\nthat your mad<\/p>\n
no good telling me the cocks
\nhave pecked you
\nshowing me your bruised arms
\nnot at all
\nkick the buggers then they’ll
\nsoon know whose the boss
\nyou my son have broken
\nevery rule
\nHow’d you think your mum
\nand me can feed you
\nwe have to eat our own stuff
\nand that’s why
\nI grows the spuds and beans and peas
\nand lettuces
\nand why these pesky
\ncreatures have to die<\/p>\n
He stood there and killed “Bertie”
\nI watched my baby die
\nhe didn’t even struggle
\nin one blink of his eye
\nhis body limp and lifeless
\nhis guts spread on the ground
\nfor years I could’t face my dad
\nor want to be around
\nAnd I grew apart from him
\nI think
\nand it all started that day
\nWhen I realised that me and him
\nwere not the same okay<\/p>\n
I never killed an animal
\nI kept “Berti” in my heart
\nhe was such a lovely friend
\nand when we had to part
\nand he was in the evening stew
\nand his fur was in the shed
\nI couldn’t eat one piece
\nof him
\nand for that I was sent
\nto bed<\/p>\n
I dreamed about him on and off
\nand still you know sometimes
\nI think of dear old Bertie
\nof our games and lovely times
\nand really from that moment
\nI decided I would not
\neat the food mum gave me
\nthe meat part, and she got
\nthe message slowly giving me less
\nand less
\nshe gave me far more vegetables
\nand that lessened the stress<\/p>\n
But she loved fat and
\ndripping
\nbutter and sweet milk
\nshe loved that Nestle
\ncondensed stuff
\nand Fussel’s,of that ilk
\nshe also loved Carnation on canned fruit
\nshe would buy
\nBut I never ever touched the stuff
\nand eggs I didn’t try
\nall those years of keeping chickens
\npicking up their eggs
\nmost of them had shit on them
\nor blood,they were the dregs
\nI could never bear the smell
\nit reminded me too much
\nof the chickens and the rabbits
\nthat lived in our old hutch<\/p>\n
I must have been about 10
\nwhen I realised that I
\nwasn’t getting pocket
\nmoney
\nand so asked my dad why
\nif your a man go out and get a job
\nhe said to me
\ndeliver milk or papers
\nget a job and be
\nthankful that your mother
\nwashes your clothes and tries
\nto look after you
\ndespite your girlie attitude
\nsurprise!<\/p>\n
Surprise! I went and did just that
\nDelivering milk with Steve
\nHe was an inspector
\nand with him I did achieve
\nHe tried to make me eat the stuff
\nfruit yoghurts oh! the smell
\nthe milk came from cows udders
\nnot me Steve thanks I’ll sell
\nand you can earn commission
\nbut I don’t want to eat
\nmilk that comes from moo cows bums
\nfor me it is no treat<\/p>\n
and besides cows milks for baby cows
\nand if I drink the stuff
\nit isn’t rocket science to know
\nthat the cow, won’t have enough
\nSome of the places we delivered to
\nwere farm houses and they
\nkept cows but not for milking
\nand I saw calves thrown away
\njust lying near the doorstep
\nand was told that’s what they do
\nkill the runts stamp on their heads
\nand I remembered Bertie who
\nalso had to die so we could
\neat him but this soul
\nwas murdered and was thrown away
\nthere just seemed no control<\/p>\n
Then someone made me drink some
\nmilk out somewhere at some fair
\nand I collapsed in agony
\nmy mother got a scare
\nrushed off to the hospital
\nand had tests day and night
\nI was on the danger list
\nin Men’s surgical
\nal’right
\nPeritonitis I believe
\nand another complication
\nI still have the scar to prove it
\nand a determination
\nthat I would never ever drink
\nmilk or dairy food
\nall through school it was orange juice
\nand my school meals
\nnever stewed
\nin milk or eggs
\nmy allergies set me apart from those
\nother kids who had silver top
\nand that’s the way it goes<\/p>\n
So very little meat
\nno milk no eggs for me
\nI still ate fish
\nand sometimes bought some
\nfor us all for tea
\nbut then one day
\nI happened
\nto be outside the fish
\nshop and
\nTom asked me to go inside
\nit seems that he had planned
\nhe offered me a job there
\nand soon or later I
\ncouldn’t eat fish either
\nthough I will not tell you why<\/p>\n
All I will say is that those
\npeople who work with living souls
\nget really rather heartless
\nand do lose their controls
\nblood and guts are everywhere
\nand the smells just made me sick
\nLater I worked in a Butchers shop
\nI never missed a trick
\nI learned back slang
\nI made sausages
\nand some more
\ndressed Boar’s heads
\nmade dripping in the copper
\nand burgers for the poor<\/p>\n
burgers for the fair grounds
\nfor the circus when it came
\nand again I saw the animals
\nand again it was the same
\nthe animals in the circus
\nwere awful
\ntheir bodies clearly injured
\nmany whacked
\nI remember my dad telling
\nme to show the chickens who was boss
\nI remember it and how
\nI did react
\nAnimals were getting such a bad deal
\nfrom humans I remember how I felt
\nthe bakers horse was whipped
\nfor walking far too slow
\nand at night sometimes
\nI remember that I knelt<\/p>\n
and prayed that animals could
\nhave a better deal
\nbut gradually I realised
\nthat things
\nwere much worse than I ever dreamed
\nwere possible
\nand I would have to grow
\nmyself some wings
\nand fly off far away
\nto some place safer
\nwhere animals were not killed
\nfor their meat
\nwhere calves were not killed so
\nthat we could steal their milk
\nthere had to be a place
\nwhich I called “Dream Street”<\/p>\n
of course I never found the place
\nthe place never existed
\nbut 40 years ago I sort of just
\nenlisted
\nI became a vegan, I’d been one for a while
\nBut it was now official
\nI could now reconcile
\nhow I felt with what I ate
\nthe planet seemed to me
\nto be reeling from the humans
\nyes I know,and me
\nI had to make my footprint small
\nhad to really try
\nand think about the animals
\nand why they had to die
\nI visited a slaughterhouse
\nA factory Farm and more
\nA Broiler House O God I thought
\nHell on earth for sure
\nthe smell of piss was awful
\nthe bodies strewn about
\nthe chickens they were cannibals
\nto me so little doubt
\nthat all those sheds
\nwere turning out
\nindustrialization, stank
\nit had nothing to do with
\nethics’just what went in the bank
\nthe animals were nothing
\nthey were hardly fed all day
\nmany had no water
\nand no sunlight, and did pay
\na lot for sad sick humans
\nwho raised them just to kill
\nthem their short lies were terrible
\nI had had about my fill
\nI began to write about it all
\npoems night and day
\nand ever since that moment
\nit has been the way
\nforward and more vegans
\nhave come onto the scene
\nbut clearly now the corporates
\nhave cleaned up and have been
\nselling meat and dairy
\npushing it like mad
\nmaking all their fortunes
\nfrom the animals so sad
\nfrom the fur trade
\nfrom the seal trade
\nfrom the hunters and I know
\nthat many humans suffer
\nnow from shock and awe and woe
\nheart disease and cancers
\nits every where today
\neven children get it
\nthey are made to pay
\nfor the errors of their parents
\nand its happening more and more
\na holocaust of horror
\nof blood of snot and gore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The beginnings of my vegan tendences Continue reading