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The Vegan Poem Page 5
Unique poetry to promote the many
benefits of a plant-based (vegan) diet.
These poem pages are a forum for artists to share their work
with others.
Unless otherwise noted, the poems are copyrighted by the
individual authors.
Poetry by Bernie Jones (Page Two):
Because We've Got the
Power
These creatures are hidden from our eyes,
Though the centre of our lives,
In what we eat, in what we wear
In our cosmetics, in our hair
We pump our money into pain
Because we're greedy, because we're vain
From head to toe we drip in blood
And why? Because we think we should?
They are weak and we are strong
They are BEGGING to be wronged
So we oblige.
BEING FOR THE SAKE OF
BEING
IF ANIMALS WERE MEANT TO BE BRED,
IMPRISONED,
TORTURED,
SLAUGHTERED,
THEN WHY WERE THEY CREATED WITH BRAINS SO
THAT THEY
CAN UNDERSTAND THE TORMENT,
THE TORTURE,
THE IMPRISONMENT?
WHY DO THEY HAVE NERVES SO THAT THEY CAN FEEL
THE
PAIN,
FEEL THE SLICE OF THE KNIFE,
THE BULLET IN THE BRAIN?
THE SAW THROUGH THEIR BONES?
WHY WERE THEY GIVEN EYES, SO THAT THEY CAN
SEE THE
KNIFE,
BEFORE IT TAKES THEIR LIFE?
SEE THE TERROR OF THOSE AROUND THEM?
WHY DO THEY HAVE EARS SO THAT THEY MAY HEAR
THE
SCREAMS OF TERROR OF THEIR FELLOWS,
HEAR THE LAUGHTER OF THE SLAUGHTER MEN
THEIR OWN VILE SCREAMS AS THEY CRY OUT WITH
ALL THEIR
MIGHT
"I WANT TO LIVE!"?
EARS SO THEY CAN HEAR THE WORDS OF CRUELTY
AND OF
HORROR?
THE PITEOUS CRIES?
WHY DO THEY POSESS NOSES SO THAT THEY MAY
SMELL THE
FEAR IN THE AIR,
THE SMELL OF THE BLOOD AND GUTS OF THEIR
SISTERS AND
BROTHERS
FATHERS AND MOTHERS?
THE SMELL OF SHIT, THE SMELL OF PAIN?
WHY DO THEY HAVE CAPACITY FOR EMOTION SO THAT
THEY
MAY BELLOW IN UNTOLD EMOTIONAL AGONY AS THEIR
OFFSPRING IS TORN FROM THEM TO BE TAKEN TO A
PLACE OF
TORTURE?
WHY? WHY? WHYYYYYY?!
ANIMALS WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE BRED,
CONTROLLED,
IMPRISONED,
TORTURED,
SLAUGHTERED!
THEY WERE MEANT TO LIVE IN THEIR OWN RIGHT AS
YOU AND I.
THEY WERE MEANT TO FEEL THE SUN ON THEIR
BACKS AND
THEY WERE MEANT TO KNOW THE FREEDOM THAT IS
'BEING FOR THE SAKE OF BEING.'
Conscience Set to
'Mute'
I LOVE the taste of meat and that's reason enough to cause such pain,
I LIKE meat, I WANT to eat meat...I'm here if you want someone to blame.
I can't feel the suffering or see the awful life or bloody demise
I can't see the struggling beast or hear the terrified, pitiful cries
Why should I see? Why should I hear? Why should I even TRY to empathise?
If I want to carry on eating my meat, that really wouldn't be very wise!
If I don't see or hear the suffering, I can deny it and enjoy my meat!
Turn down the volume on the pig's squeal, or dying lamb's bleat.
I can['t personally feel the pain, I'm a human being, so why would I care?
Why would I want to imagine waiting to die, being scared?!
I know that I am human and possessing conscience could play a part
But I don't 'choose' to listen, or open up my heart
For some, their conscience screams that there is something very wrong,
with eating creatures that suffer, ending their life's song
But conscience comes with adjustable volume which I always set to "mute"
I don't 'want' to live my life eating veg'tables, grains and fruit!
LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING! I'll close my eyes so I don't see,
and close my ears, mute my conscience and have steak and
chips for tea!"
Evil Isn't
Far
In the illegal slaughterhouse
The crippled goat waits to die
I see her struggle in the halflight
I hear her heartwrending cry
I see the bloody slaughter slab
The cleaver on the floor
I see the hanging headless carcasses
And the rusty hacksaw
I see shapes in the shadows
Can't make out what they are
Jesus! I see clearly now
In horror, I stare
At row upon row of goats heads
Staring up at me
Eyes glazed, tongues protrude
I wish I could NOT see
This abomination makes me bawk
In that instant I understand
Cruelty and suffering will always go on
Whilst we are killing on demand
Whether slaughter is illegal
Or in a licensed abattoir
When we cause needless suffering
Evil isn't far
Hey Little
Ducky
Hey little ducky, do you want some bread?
Why should I feed you? You'll soon be dead.
Hey little ducky, want some water to float,
No point little ducky, I'm gonna cut your throat.
Hey little ducky, do you want to be free?
Too bad little ducky, I want to eat you for tea.
Hey little ducky, shall I stop your pain?
You're the lucky little ducky, you won't see another day.
I Am
I feel the torment
I feel the pain
I feel the boredom
I feel the grief
I feel the desperation
I feel the death
I feel the apathy
I am the human being
I am the dying lamb
I am the imprisoned hen
I am the grieving cow
I am the tortured calf
I am the puppy in the lab
I am you.
I am all things
In the moment
I feel
I understand
I am
I Matter
I imagine I'm a pig...
I look up and all I see
Familiar faces back at me
And I am afraid.
Many people that I love
Looking down from above
You'll show no mercy.
And I know that you won't see
But by your actions you agree
To my death.
I am afraid
I am hurt
I am desperate
I am scared
My loved ones play a part
In my death
"Kill" is in your eyes
More important are pork pies
Than me.
I stare at you and plead
But all in vain, I'm soon to bleed
For your black pudding
As a pig my life's worth nowt
Worth more dead without a doubt
No pity. No second thought.
As a pig it's pain to 'be',
So I come back to being me.
NOW, I matter.
If Animals Had a
Voice
When I hold my dog's paw, for a second too long,
He pulls away from me, something feels wrong
If he had a voice, he would surely say
"I've had enough of that, please, for one day."
Even though the act was causing no pain
It irritates him "Please don't do that again"
So I stop it at once, because I love him
As a pig is trapped in the farrowing crate
With no room to move, a sorry state
If she had a voice she would surely shout
"I need to be free, please LET ME OUT!"
Nothing to stimulate her agile brain
Only room in that pen to go slowly insane.
But we don't listen, because money is more important
As the calf is taken away, at one day old
To go straight to slaughter, or market to be sold
If the mother had a voice she would surely cry
"Bring back my baby, without her I'll die"
She bellows for their young, grieves for a time
But because cows can't speak, it's the perfect crime,
And we ignore her pain, because we want her milk
As the lamb goes to die, so little time on this earth
Left out in the cold, from her moment of birth
If that lamb had a voice, she would surely say
"Please do not kill me, I don't want to die today!!!"
No being wants to die, all life clings to life
All sentient beings will flee from the knife
Too bad little lamb, we want our meat.
As a monkey is strapped to the torture machine
Bolts coming from her brain, looking totally obscene
If that life had a voice, she would surely scream
"Please, someone wake me from this horrible dream!"
She's never caused harm from the day she saw life
Never known happiness, bred simply to die
Sorry little monkey, WE are more important
All of these creatures, bred only to die
Though because they are hidden, we don't know their plight
If they all had a voice, they would in unison say
"Why do you want us to suffer this way?"
If people had compassion it wouldn't take long to see
That all life, like us, only wants to be free
If only animals had a voice.
It's Ok By
Us
Imagine you are a mouse
In a lab
On the slab
So terrified, so tiny
So innocent, so alive, feeling pain...again.
But 'white coat' doesn't care
You've spent your short life as a little pin-cushion,
You've spent your short life without com-passion
You're 'only' a mouse
You can barely move with that large tumour
At least the 'white coats' have a sense of humour
You look RIDICULOUS!
You suffer terribly but we can't hear your screams
Or feel your pain
Or see the torture
So we don't care
So your suffering goes on and it's ok by us.
Imagine you are a dog
In a lab
On the slab
So trusting...the first time
You soon know not to be!
Pain, an every day reality
But 'white coat' doesn't care
You've been cut all over your belly
Some of your sores are really smelly
But you cannot reach to lick the pain away
You howl in pain...again...
But no one hears, you are ignored
You suffer terribly but we can't hear your screams
Or feel your pain
Or see the torture
So we don't care
So your suffering goes on and it's ok by us
Imagine you are a monkey
In a lab
On the slab
So clever, so aware, so frightened
You understand this is not a place of kindness
What have you done to get into this mess?!
You've been awake as they drilled into your skull
Can feel vibrations, though only dull...for now.
You are in constant terror and emotional torment
But this is a 'necessary' experiment
Because humans matter more than YOU
You suffer terribly but we can't hear your screams
Or feel your pain
Or see the torture
So we don't care
So your suffering goes on and it's ok by us.
It's only a
film
In the darkness, the dinginess, the filth, the grime.
In an old house in the middle of nowhere,
Young people, being tortured, being killed
By a mad-man in a dead-skin mask
THANK GOD IT�S ONLY A FILM
In this blood-soaked hell-hole there has been suffering
Of which no human has ever felt before
A crazy man with overalls is slicing, dicing, peeling
Sewing, ripping, slashing, all the while, the victim still feeling
IT�S ONLY A FILM
Screaming, yelling, shouting in agony and torment
Inevitable death, doom, hanging over his head
He hangs from a hook in his back, skewered
One leg hacked off at the knee, all the while, still feeling
ONLY A FILM
Terror, despair, fear, culminating in him, eyes bulging
As if to pop, but no scream leaves his open mouth
Blood gurgles past his lips as he prays for death
His friend, skinned alive, before his life slipped away
A FILM
The mad-man sews foot to the pedal of the machine
Stitching the young man's face back together
Bits of body parts hang from the ceiling, heads and innards
Jars of human eye-balls, noses, fingers, feet on a bench
FILM
Another chase and the girl runs to the meat plant
Running through the swinging cow carcasses and heads
Skinned cow's heads swaying as she knocks them,
Eyeballs as wide and white as hers as she runs for her life
THEN IT DAWNS ON ME
The horror of what I have seen is NO different to
The horror
The terror,
The pain,
The torture,
The fear,
The screams
The conscious suffering
The hanging
The slicing
The hacking
The sawing
The skinning alive
The hanging body parts
Swinging heads
The entrapment
The fact no one hears
Having nowhere to run
Skin stitched to make garments
THE INEVITABLE DEATH
The blood
The guts
The suffering...
Of the slaughterhouse
THIS ISN'T A FILM, THIS IS REAL LIFE
I wept
Making Bacon
The camera is on her
She lies in her own filth, half concealed by straw
Only known life for a few short months
Too weak to stand.
Shallow breaths.
Snuffled by her scrawny brothers and sisters
Her right eye, rotting away
Oozing pus
Flies landing on it
Feeding off it
Does pain ever get so bad it can no longer be felt?
I hope so, for her sake.
I hope she gives up soon
But the next night, she still breathes,
Though shallow
She clings to her life.
Her hip bones poke out as if to split the skin
Her weeping eye, no longer seeing
Oozing pus
Flies landing on it
Feeding off it
I beg her to give up soon
If she lives, what awaits her?
Worse than this.
The next night, the cameras return
She is dead.
Such is the life and death of a young pig
On a factory farm
She couldn't even survive long enough
To make bacon
The End of the
Line
He saw the cruelty because he worked there.
He watched them killed, he didn't care
Hanging for what seemed like an eternity,
The wrong way up from the way they were meant to be
Hundreds of chickens dangling from their feet
On their torturous journey to 'meat'.
In the shackles waiting for death
Not long now till 'he' takes their last breath
Many heads bob up, miss the electrified water
S'posed to be stunned, tho' many feel their gruesomeslaughter
Here comes the sharpest, the longest of all knives
To slice their throats, to take their lives
But some escape the blades, straight into the scalding tank
Like the most horrendous, vilest, cruelest of all pranks
They scream, flop and kick, eyeballs pop out of heads
Suffering for SO long and some STILL aren't dead!
They exit the tank, many are missing body parts,
Disfigured legs, wings, exploded hearts.
Many times the line broke down, some drown in the stunning water
Those creatures knew nothing of a 'humane' slaughter.
The machine is broken and the man is SO mad,
He tramples some to death, uses some hens as punch bags.
They are not living beings to him, just objects of no value,
He's more upset 'cause there's blood on his shiny shoe!
They feel the pain, the will to live, please understand,
That chickens, too, deserve the compassion of man.
People say 'I only eat chicken, I don't eat much meat'
Pleased with themselves, proud of their compassionate feat
But I have seen the suffering of those souls left for dust
Never afforded compassion because they are so different from us.
The Greater
Good
We sew the eyes of monkeys
Burn the skins of rabbits,
Drill holes into the brains of cats,
We slice into mice,
Put pigs hearts in chimps,
And torture and suffocate rats.
We take babies from mothers
Slaughter mothers whilst pregnant,
Fetus' twitch on the floor.
We slice throats of the conscious
Take the lives of newborns
Then hack them up with a saw!
We decide we can hurt
Any animal we choose
For the 'greater good' of man
Because they cannot scream out
They cannot TELL ALL
We arrogantly believe that we can.
We cause pain to the silent
For the sake of our bellies
Torture and slaughter for fun
We rip out the hearts,
Of the animals in labs
Then try to 'condone' what we've done!
'Custom can resign us,
to any atrocity'
George Bernard Shaw rightly said,
So, it seems we'll keep on
Torturing and slaughtering,
Till all fellow creatures are dead.
The Greed of the
West
WE take the grain from the mouths of the poor
To feed our cattle, to eat steaks, chops and MORE
Drink milk and eat eggs and luxuries unknown
to the starving millions in a far off home.
The irony is that WE raise cash for relief
When WE cause the hunger, our nation, the thief!
We steal the grain from the mouths of 'their kids'
So we can buy 'Happy Meals' to feed to 'our kids'!
We put our hands in our pockets and try to pretend
That we're making a difference, bringing poverty to an end
Then we go home for tea of bacon and egg
Whilst those poor starving millions are too weak to beg
Eating millet and rice if they're 'the lucky', 'the blessed'
Knowing nothing of the injustice, the greed of the West
The Same Peaceful
Song
How is it that some
Couldn't care what is done
To the beings they can't hear or see?
And how is it that I
No matter how I try
Keep 'feeling' the constant cruelty?
How come there are those
Who quite clearly choose
To ignore all those poor souls in need?
But when it comes back to me
Though I've tried not to see
They affect all my words, thoughts and deeds
Do some people not care
Even when they're aware
Of the suffering they cause all the time
I can't turn off the pain
And I WILL take the blame
I accept the responsibility's mine
When will people realize
The wonderful compromise
They can 'enjoy', and still cause no harm
When we respect all things living
Stop taking, start giving
When we all sing the same peaceful song.
The Saviour Who Never
Comes
The emotions of animals,
So ignored, so denied.
Who will listen to their cries?
The fears of the animals,
Their screams, their despair
Who will choose to care?
Longing for something more
Their pain, their confusion
This horror must be illusion?
The horrendous boredom
Stereotypical behaviour
As they wait for a saviour......who never comes
There's Always An
Excuse
Life is not ours to create or to take
We try to play God, for petty sakes
We've re-written the meaning of countless words
Such as 'suffering' and 'science', to suit ourselves.
We take torture and cruelty to the extreme
But only to the creatures that cannot be seen
Those creatures not heard, those who can't scream
We commit acts and deeds BEYOND obscene
We view taking life as an everyday thing
Like to play, to laugh, to cry or to sing
We teach our children that killing is ok
As long as the victim has nothing to say!
We teach our kids that there's always an excuse
For any form we choose, of animal abuse
We teach that eating animals is the only way
We need our protein at the end of the day!
Well maybe there REALLY is NEVER a reason
To take of a life, not even in season
Maybe our importance is blown out of proportion
Because animals, like us, are capable of emotion
That they have the right, just as much as we
To never be tortured, to be 'allowed' to be free
To feel the sun on their backs and smell the clean air
Maybe one day, more people will care...
And make a stand for the the voiceless billions we torture and
slaughter every year.
There Was a Young
Puppy...
There was a young puppy named Fido
To escape from the lab he had tried-o
They hacked open his brain
Electrodes drove him insane
And the lab techs just laughed when he died-o
They Will All
Die...
It's foggy today,
Murky, misty, grey.
A day to die.
As the trucks line up at the death factory
Noses poke between the slats
Nostrils flare as they take in the smells of blood and fear
Wafting from behind those walls.
White eyes protrude, heads tilt to see what's to come.
Some will have to wait a while
Before they feel the gun.
Hundreds of animals crammed into trucks,
In the queue for slaughter,
Time for some to really FEEL that terror,
As it builds and builds to an unbearable intensity,
Waiting...knowing...their life soon to be stolen...
(Though, as yet, unaware of the �how�.)
...by the blood-spattered thieves inside the house of pain.
Head upon head soon to possess an unsealable hole,
Brain upon brain to be damaged beyond repair,
Smashing that bone,
A demon, wielding a captive bolt,
Too late then for reprieve.
Grabbed by the hind legged, wrenched upside down,
Knife stuck in, rammed down across open throat
Some will struggle,
Some won't,
Some will feel every slice,
Some won't.
Some know every cut
Some don't,
Some feel the saw, grinding at their legs
Some don't.
No, the hole in the head won't keep them ALL still!
But then, they will all die...in time.
Who Sheds a
Tear?
Who sheds a tear?
I shed a tear
For all the fear, we have caused you
I have cried
Many a time
For all the hurt we have caused you
Who has wept?
I have wept
For all the souls we are taking
I have screamed
Because it seems
It's a holocaust in the making
Who's in despair?
I'm in despair
We torture millions of beings every day
Who really cares?
I really care
I will fight against the suffering today
Who will stand up and fight?
I will stand up and fight
For the suffering voiceless today
Who will stand for what's right?
I will stand for what's right
Spread the word, "There IS another way."
For the millions who have died
Without compassion in their lives
Who sheds a tear?
I do.
Where Do All Their Bits
Go?
Whatever happens to their legs?
To their ears?
Their lips?
Their poo?
And all those things that we have too?
Whatever happens to their heads?
Their mouths?
Their hearts?
Their eyes?
Do they all end up in pies?
The Season of
Goodwill
On the first day of Christamas my butcher killed for me...
A big fat crippled tur-key!
2) 2 battery hens
3) Sheep with foot-rot
4) Tiny lambs
5) BABY GOATS
6) Young stags
7) Cows with calf
8) Guinea fowl
9) Fact'ry rabbits
10) Male chicks
11) Battered piggies
12) Dairy calves
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