#livestock
You can measure the days out in weight or in dread
It's a gunmetal grey sky, dented up and bent.
Went to Lakeside and tried out the spluttering depth.
Slept too well to stop breathing, started dripping instead.
A pig with porcine needs...
_You're freezing, not swimming
stale mouths are all grinning!_
__Up from the mattress, let go what I stole
Calling the mud and the clay, cards to show
Go to troughs, walk through droppings when it's time to be fed
"I can die like a hero, or go back to bed..."
Finish out the sentence...__
You can tell them I hate them and want all their smoke
I can slice through the surface, and sink 'til I choke.
Spoke to Sergio, he told me, "Boy, you're a ghost!
Spose'ta dry out on mainland, but got soaked on the coast!"
A pig with piscine dreams...
_You're bloating, not sinking!
Just floating and stinking!_
__Up from the lakebed, and back to the pen?
Squealing for slop and then sleeping again!
Go to troughs, walk through droppings 'til the pickings are thin
"I can live like the fodder or die like the fish."
That concludes the sentence...__
_Down to the mattress and shadows once more
Cold fish are talking and keeping cold score
When the bucket is empty, the pigs all just rest.
You can die like a hero, or go back to bed.
Back to bed._
Nov 3, 2025
Nov 3, 2025 at 3:27 PM UTC
the sheep cleared his throat, a ballad he bleated
but pulling wool over eyes, he really had cheated
as he simply had boldly repeated
what had been writ with the pen
haphazardly by chicken-scratch hen
pig used a sty -lus for wife, piglets three
wrote stories and poems, wrote them with glee
he wrote them
to bring home the bacon, you see
until he found out the bacon was he!
duck had no luck whatever the weather
for her writing she used a quill feather
when it poured down with rain
the duck near went insane
instead of paper she should have used leather
rooster read his work right out loud
he crowed and was so very proud
but on 5 a.m. he insisted
the rest were asleep and persisted
they didn't get up so they missed it
the dog had no papers nor did the cat
so no point in having a pen, given that
but (poetic) license(s) they had
they weren't really too bad
so with their claws they scratched on a mat
oh yes, on that farm were smart creatures
they could write great poems and features
the farmer called in a fit
look, the cow she has writ
but, the *** brayed out, it's udder ********
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
Our Pyrenees mix
is afraid of the small goats
he lives to harass
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 1:02 PM UTC
Observing these old men sitting at the stockyard cafe,
Suspendered bellies hanging above huge buckles
And button-crotched Levi's tucked tight over leather boots,
Legs grown bowed and thin, but carrying them to the sale, still,
To hear the auctioneer, talking fast to work the buying crowd,
And get their fill of cattle, shoved indoors,
Sold beneath the steady cracking whips,
A spectacle to burn its way into my minds's forever eye:
The skidding steers, the rolling eyes, the frantic scramble to find cover,
While buyers gave their quiet signs:
A tilted cap, a winking eye, a thumb or index finger up or at a side,
To purchase cow or bull or horse, in living flesh...
Then out again, through the other door,
And turn our heads to wait for more, and read the scrolling numbers:
How many head, how much per pound, perhaps a buyer's name,
And then the swinging sound of other cattle coming in to start again.
So, here these old boys sit again,
Slurping coffee through their yellowed teeth,
Remembering days of indoor cigarettes and harried waitresses,
The smell of cow manure and jingling spurs,
Though now the smokeless ring seems tame, more civilized,
I see the glory days reflecting in the old men's eyes.....
I was just a boy back in those good old days,
My memory is a little hazed, but I can recall
When smoking was allowed and sawdust covered the filthy floor,
A Coca-Cola cost a dime, and the cattle sale with Dad was the big time;
Quaking as we treaded light on the catwalks above the pens,
Looked for our calves, or cows Dad culled to bring to sale,
Then going down and in to see them sell.
Fondly now, I can recall the restaurant at the ring
Where I hoped for a slice of lemon pie from behind chill-fogged glass,
Saw cowmen wearing spurs and neckerchiefs and chaps...
Dreamed of growing up to be a cowboy.
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 1:32 AM UTC