Wish I was a Vegetarian!

I wish I were a vegetarian
I'd sleep a little easier
Without dead sheep to count
Brushing my teeth, not watching out
For stray pieces of meat

I'm searching for the discipline
Excuse or motivating force
To bolster my resolve to eat
And be as I should long have been
Of flesh and guilt, absolved and free

I've visited the slaughter-house
Where brains are stunned, carcasses hung
And bled and quartered into steak
The regiments of hens, all caged, debeaked
The pigs castrated, eunuchs waiting for the end to come.

I don't care how the surplus beasts would do -
We're overpopulated here ourselves!
Just let them all run free, I guess
In case they could feel happiness
They wouldn't be deprived of it by me

It's not about them, in the end
It's all familiarity
And if grandchildren ever crowd my knee
They won't recoil and faint beside my feet:
Oh man, what were you thinking, way back then -
Killing poor creatures for their meat?

poem by Frank Bana
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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