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A Savage Spring

A sickly sweet smell lingers

Bodies

Legs in the air

Bloated bellies

 

Senseless slaughter

Rivers of blood in country lanes

Hundreds of thousands dead

If this were a war in a foreign land there would be outrage

 

Instead of crying “Shame… Stop…”

The government shouts “Kill…Cull…”

and drafts the Army into a battle

on home soil that they're not trained for

 

It’s got all the facets of a work of fiction

****** lies, cover up

larger than life figures and unsung heroes

And above all, innocent victims

 

What will our children say

when they read of this real-life genocide?

Heads will hang in shame

and the pervasive memory of death will remain

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Written by
jacqueline-le-sueur
English
Published
Jan 17, 2011
Lines·Words
20·112
Notes

©Jacqueline Le Sueur 2011 All Rights Reserved

(Written in Devon, England in April 2001 at the height of the foot and mouth crisis. A forgoten poem, rediscovered this morning as I sort through my office. The poem may have been forgotten for the past decade but the sights and smells of that terrible time are as viseral now as they were then.)

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