Two Chicks

The baby birds work with a will to live
Pecking and clawing till their egg shells give

Two fuzzy chicklets then enter the world
one is a boy and the other a girl

The soft yellow fuzz that they both wear
quivers as they breathe their very first air

Their battle was living and they have won
They want to show off what they have done.

They look to the left and they look to the right
For their dear mother, but she’s not in sight

Instead there are thousands just as they
Chirping worriedly who’d been born that day

Suddenly a huge fat claw grabs the boy
and lifts him roughly like a lifeless toy

A corpulent woman then checks him out—
prodding his fuzz until there’s no doubt.

He is a male, so she breaks his neck—CRACK!
And then lops him into a death-filled sack.

Aborting chicklets is not a big deal
for they are so small and easy to kill.

Roosters don’t bring any profits in
Shareholders view losses as a sin

So our little rooster was born in vain
since he’d not increase the corporate gain.

The woman then claws the baby hen
and does what she’s done many times again.

The lady stops poking when satisfied
the chick’s a girl and can be set aside.

Natural sunlight shall be denied this chick
though the sun almost makes a chicken tick

In a crowded in-door cage she’ll grow
where she may never hear a rooster’s crow.

Her wings are cut off so she can’t flap…
she only breathes the scent of chicken crap

Her feed’s designed to maker her big and sick—
laced with antibiotic arsenic

She is debeaked so in case of a rage
she can’t hurt the others in her cage.

Her toes are chopped so they won’t grow around
the metal wires that make up her ground

And when she has grown old enough to lay,
lights are kept on twenty-three hours a day.

Artificial hormones give her some juice
so day in and day out she must produce

She will lay many months until she’s dry,
then she’ll be killed for us to roast or fry.

As we eat theses tasty birds with glee
let us not forget their misery.

A chick breaks out of a creamy round shell
to enter life in a corporate hell.

All meats found upon our dinner plates
endured similarly tormented fates.

Pigs and cows and sheep and fish
suffer before they are placed on a dish

Gone are the healthy, happy farms of old
where animals lived well till their meat was sold.

Factory farming is now the way
but it’s not only animals who pay

For by eating the products of greed and pain
we suffer ill-health or huge weight gain

We gorge ourselves full of scavenged meat
though plant foods are meant for us to eat.

Christians, Moslems, and Jews should all note
the very first diet that Moses wrote

Contained in Genesis one-twenty-nine
the foods given us by the divine

and the only foods that we really need
are tree fruits and herbs bearing seed.

The Vegan

I'm locked inside a tiny cell
for reasons most unfair
I've quite a story here to tell
sit back and let me share.

One time I went to a buffet
to eat a lot of food
I saw a man with hair turned gray
not in a cheery mood
Pig and cow and fish and bird
I piled upon my plate
The man gave me the evil eye
I thought I read some hate
He looked some fifty five in years
his eyes were piercing gray
I could not understand his sneers
each time he looked my way
"The pig is very good," I said
"Its something you should try."
He looked at me with utmost dread
I could not think of why
"I never eat disgusting pork,
Thinks you I am a loon?
No meat has ever touched my fork
Nor been upon my spoon."
I was aghast at what he said
it sounded full of scorn
I looked to see on what he fed,
his plate was full of corn
"You are a strange one, yes indeed
with what you choose to eat.
You mean the food on which you feed
has not an ounce of meat?"
"Sometimes in salad there's a bug
On which I have to chew
And I must eat it with a shrug,
What else is there to do?
But you're a nasty carnivore
My young bloodthirsty friend
The death of critters I abhor
Their murders just won't end
I see your life will not be long
By what's upon your dish
Your health you cannot much prolong
With steak, pork, foul, and fish!"
"You mean I'll live a long, long time
eating rabbit food like you?"
"Quite true young man, you see that I'm
One hundred fifty-two."
I hid my shock at what he said
I'm sure it was no lie
If decades would not make him dead
I knew I'd make him die
I grinned and said in tones untrue
"You do not quite appear
much older than one hundred-two
not by a single year."
The old man smiled back at me,
I knew he couldn't live
I own a chicken factory
and had a good motive
To cause his death and make him rot,
but then I looked around
I wished to kill him on the spot
but witnesses abound
"Meat is wicked," he'd go and tell
to everyone he could
And then my chicken wouldn't sell
and that just isn't good
With practiced grace and mustered charm
I looked into his eyes
And asked him to come see my farm,
its greatness to surmise
"You simply cannot judge all meat
and say that its all bad
so if you come down to my street
I'd sure be awful glad.
You see I own some chickens there
who live a grand old life
I pay each chicken special care
before it meets my knife."
"You don't understand my meaning
Of why it isn't good
You see killing is demeaning
Earth's creature's are not food!"
"Look sir, I've got a knife on you,
be silent and be still
Do whatever I tell you to
or I will have to kill"
The man looked up at me in shock,
I showed no kidding smile
I wanted him to meet my flock
and stand a slander trial
I knew I'd be the one to take
his great old age away
It was my hopeful plan to make
this vegetarian pay
We headed to my factory
and there I sat on him
In vain he struggled to be free
I cut each flailing limb
"Why are you doing this you brute?"
He cried with pain-filled tears
"You are an old and crazy coot
who's lived too many years.
I do not want to wind up broke
and end up in the street
When people learn that they can croak
from eating tasty meat.
So I will shut you up for good
and chop you very small
Then all my pretty chickens would
have a yummy free for all.
These birds you may refuse to eat,
but they will relish you
They love the sight of fresh warm meat,
with blood it makes a stew."
With that I cut his scrawny neck
his head rolled on the ground
The birds began to cluck and peck
and feathers flew around

In little time they ate him down
and I was very glad .
But the old man had friends in town
who'd seen him at my pad

Police went to my chicken coop
and found his DNA
when they examined chicken poop
that's why I'm here today.