1

The Clowns in Brussels Sprouts
have sent me a notebook. Tossers.
The latest thrilling instalment from ******* Creek.

The Animal Events Recording Notebook —
fits in your pocket,
if it happens to be a school bag.
A little picture on the cover
Jack, the farmer, a cow and her calf.
Equally gay as it is oxymoronically inaccurate.

No sign of a tag on either the cow or calf.
The cow has a pair of horns
that would **** any animal, never mind the farmer,
statistically dead. Plus,
the calf’s a bit too healthy looking
and the cow ain’t trying to **** the farmer either.

Between the covers coloured-coded sections
chronicling the animal’s progress
from Foetus to Fork.


2

Though, I do thoroughly enjoy filling out those
additional comment columns.


De-horning

Next to castrating lambs,
I love this job —
all-the-more if there’s a gang.
The first has no idea what coming
and the last wishes they weren’t.
But seriously, I’d say it hurts.
A lot.


Castration

See Revival, issue 6 P.14 —
revised in Inheritance P.26


Weaning

Always good for poem.
I laugh from the comfort of my bed.
Ye’re only halfway lads

And how far along are you?
They inquire back.


3

Ok, I get it. Seriously.
Stop depleting the rainforests please …  
I have my own notebook thanks.

I understand their dilemma.  
They fear mindsets will be inherited
form the old flock, the old stock —
the canners and brass tags —
who never converted.

It’s like auld women and the church
engrained since birth
and no amount of jibber-jabber will sway.
So they concentrate, groom us
weanling growing up
in the Age of A.I.M
on BETTER Farms


4

Regardless, the second you tag a calf,
the ****’ll croak. So wink, wink:
so not to jinx yourself
and have to write a cheque;
adjust your Balance Sheet,
invariably affecting your Gross Margin.

I know … I know
S.M.R 6, 7 and all that $*@#
But it’s so cold the frost is complaining.
Plus, they said on the radio: be kind
leave food out for the birds.
I’m just thinking of the foxes.
And, if anyone asks —
she never came in calf