Town-horses
In my youth, horse transport -a one-man job
was still available for shorter journeys, a vanishing business; when the last horse-drawn carriage firm gave up, there was a picture in the newspaper of a man and a horse.
I often wondered what happened to the dear old horses spending a long time outside shops waiting for their flat-beds to be fully loaded
Looking at them was a study of longanimity, but
I don't think horses have a sense of time, just hunger or thirst as day eased towards evening
Since no farmers wanted the elderly horses, they
had tractors imported from America.
My mother said horses were slaughtered in hidden abattoirs since no one cared to admit they were eating horse flesh, made into salami and dog food.
At the local history museum, there are pictures of
the horses that helped transport building materials, making the town into a city, supplying
the housewives with manure for the roses.
And signifying nothing, upon life’s stage
meaningless, endless, a cruel war he waged
Fretting and strutting, as the curtains narrowed
Out, out, foul vegan, who doth hate man’s marrow
Comes back for encore, to be mocked, and broken
Having found mere hate, vaunting the unspoken
A shadowless ghoul behind faint shrills of woe
Sans a candle, roams hell’s abattoirs below
A dedication of respect on the
nihilistic tragedy of Macbeth
# # #
Bastardised here indeed
but more so each day by
a bard who flunked all meaning in life
# # #
Yet has somehow found faith
in putrid flesh eating flowers
# #
No doubt whilst searching for a niche
on the last syllable of soybean @urd
By
David Kavanagh
He sings a lullaby under the stars;
dreamland awaits them in grim abattoirs.
Git along, little dogies;
cowboy’s warding off bogies,
crossing the plains to those last cattle cars.
—————
for the High Noon Poetry Contest
sponsored by Joseph May
written on 04/30/2022
Reality
Its not the picture postcard pure white snow that settles picture postcard neat
Its the deep grey slush of a thousand vehicles that churn it on the street
Its not the picture postcard pure white lambs that frolic while they are able
Its the abattoirs that slaughter them and land them on your table
Its not the happy man outside the school who engaged a child in talking
Its a paedophile on his rounds a hunting and a stalking
Its not the politician being nice and sharing in your loss
Its the same guy who cut your money and he could not give a toss
Reality. I wish it was real.
It is coming
Slowly, gradually
But as sure as
The next
Dawn rises
On the
Eastern horizon
Something bad
Comes this way.
Beware of the
Calm, before
The
Storm.
The pitiful screams
From the abattoirs
Of those
Born in the
Genetic labs
Have reached a
Crescendo
The chimeras
Rebel.
Beware of the
Calm, before
The
Storm.
The multitudinous
Spewed from the
Wombs for
Reasons, unknown
Gasp and splutter
Starve, cry and
Bewail their
Forced, wretched
Existence.
Beware of the
Calm, before
The
Storm.
The earth’s withered
Veins
Sucked dry
Of its
Black blood, now
Yields silence
And engines cease
To a grinding
Whine.
Beware of the
Calm, before
The
Storm.
The Black Rhino snorts
The Tiger laughs
The beagle
Smokes his last
And deep
In the mountains
Of Cameroon
The gorilla sleeps
Gently in the night.
Beware of the
Calm, before
The
Storm.
Blasted through the arteries of great wide open spaces
like fuel-injected bullets from some laser-sighted gun,
over-priced and deathtrap built, nothing cars to nowhere places,
trailing prisms of bleeding sump oil underneath the cooling sun.
From the money-grubbing fingers of a travel agent slaughter trip,
thrown a pitch in shadows of a power station pleasure park,
where sheep are glowing green at night with radiation flavoured dip,
the very soul of Mother Earth succumbs unto the leeching dark.
Rabble rousing bodies spill their flesh upon the mosaic floors,
a crunch of black sand sticky feet through hotel foyer abattoirs,
these patrons clutch at local maps, get lost inside revolving doors,
then dance around the nuclear core in plastic palm-tree disco bars.
A haemorrhage of bleeding skies damped down with streaks of sulphur grey
is fused onto the dark horizon by a deeper shade of red,
yellow bikini beachwear melts leukaemic on the judgement day,
the swallow cardiac arrests, the last of summer drops down dead.
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