Archive 11/30/12

 

   

A Wartime Fable

 

As my years have grown longer and longer, in the wisdom teeth,

I've begun to notice that my appetite for raw meat

Has diminished to that of a three-week-old cub's.

There was a primal time when I was in my feline prime

And able to consume an entire Grévy's zebra,

Even sink my fangs into the flanks and thighs of a white rhino,

Without feeling the slightest fear of its overwhelming size;

Indeed, I was lord of my jungle territory,

An unrivaled force to be kept at a vigilant distance.

Then there came the day when both of my hind legs

Were caught in a tree-rigged rope trap and I was caged,

Sold to a traveling German circus, as a tranquilized ballet dancer,

Turned into a curiosity, a freak, an unnatural breed of creature

That could be made to stand up, rise to my full, frightening height,

Lie down, roll over, all to the crack of a cat o' nine tails,

With me ineffectually, perfunctorily snarling, growling, roaring,

As if I were humiliated, angered to the edge of retaliation,

When, in fact, I was just craving my tamer's pat on the back.

These mid-forties days of European lions' near extinction,

I suppose you could say that those like me should be grateful

To have any food at all and rain-free cages over our manes.

Truth be spewed, were it not for circuses, zoos, and sanctuaries,

Six million more of us would be on the loose;

We wouldn't be rugs paced over by colonizing Kommandanten.

What's left of us, the measure of our destinies' evanescence,

Remains to be investigated, by righteous societies and nations,

Animal lovers concerned about the fate of endangered species —

Emasculated, domesticated big cats who have no more habitats,

No more forest paths to pad over, with their retractable-claw paws,

No more fresh, raw, red zebra and rhino meat to eat,

Just rancid scraps of fly-infested, typhus-blighted carrion,

Just "nothing soup," to barely stave off starvation, dehydration . . .

Kittens being roasted, eaten, and shitted out, into history's latrines.

 

 

 

 

                     

11/30/12  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 

 
   
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