"abattoir" poems
By David John Mowers
Oceanus, Acheron, Styx and Gyges, Phlegethon,
Phaeacians lament, mourn the loss, Scheria, dissolved in froths.
Virgil’s tale, found correct, a land too good, a nation wrecked,
Nausikaa, burn the ships; their minds released, cool airy nips,
Below the wave, watery grave, submerged to bottom, fathoms by stave,
Fathoms some more, until the whorl, descending to, another world.
Through Omphalos, to Land of Sleep, awaits a beast, where time has ceased,
Darkness here, underworld, cold and frigid, below the whirl,
In solemn grave, souls released, judged and counted, by the beast,
Deeper than, the deep itself, past drowning fairies and dying elves,
Who did mourn them? Those golden men, magic mariners, Mino's kin?
What wrong was seen? What vice not true? What awful sin? What did they do?
One thousand years, first black age, Two thousand more, to find the stage,
Cast off Aries and cast Orion, to find beginning, of Golden Lion.
Man of Heavens, Beast agrees, Bull of Sky, Ox of seas,
Land of Punt, Land of Éire, Ogyges blue, hearts on fire,
All the seashores, all the mines, Tribe of Dan, from ancient times,
Port of Sais, Port of Thera, Port of Lagash, bygone era,
Sailor’s horse, Minotaur, a lyre is crying, strummed guitar, nation dying, abattoir.
Ochre foams to sanguine depth, there they rested, where Kronos slept,
He’ll never answer, he doesn’t care, we’ll never know, if this was fair.
Our hearts in sadness, hands on the gates! I curse you Poseidon!
. . .and your Sea of Fates!
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 7:58 AM UTC
Cheers!
We praise our lined faces. We forgive time.
We raise our cups of double-pressed wine.
We know brute forests from our seed-time
We know heaven will cleave those we entwine
The season of heat is slow to erupt.
April is late. March is still covered with snow,
Its shabby sheet weak shoots barely interrupt.,
Succession and succession is what we know.
In the thronged marketplace we know we’ll find
Lines of who came before and who came after
All seem in be arranged by some infinite mind
Knowing where our line goes will not stop our laughter.
We dance. All dances are in our repertoire.
We know we’re headed to that sacred abattoir.
Marc Tretin
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 8:12 PM UTC
in a dark of frenzy it boils up inside
until summarily and inexplicably
see the colour between brown and blue
more than see it, immerse myself in it
swimming slowly in its clouds
see the colour between brown and blue
everywhere votive candles light
the colour between brown and blue
with slender tapers that touch a life
any life, your life
casting strange shadows, loose shadows
between the colour of brown and blue
children swarm, children with bright white
starvation hair, children with hands
like small worn mittens
who raise red swarms in hot worn out
death laden dust
dust that cauterizes the nostrils
with the stench of penurious insanity
the colour between brown and blue
that inveigles a purchase of flies
bottle blue, black blue, green blue,
swarming blue, swirling whirling blue
a black and blue confetti of flies
then the sudden zero of the
colour between brown and blue
hair raising, command faith
willed, willing, mumbling, murmuring
the excitement of writing between
the colour of brown and blue
trees shake and tremble
words regurgitate themselves like hot
food, the bark, write
now fully electrically charged
seized by the colour between brown and blue
forget everything else, write, write more, more, write
trembling with sudden shudders of merciless
vowels, madness penurious pencil
moves across, demanding paper
pushing worn words, worthy words whittled by use
words not yet written, words of wonder
oh what words
beautiful, baffling,baleful, words
with beastly beatitudes, words that conjure the mind
words between brown and blue
that leave you skinny like a stray dog
words so demanding leave you shut up in an
airless abattoir of high energy and low residue
the colour between brown and blue
where everywhere is everywhere else
touched by the flames of the colour between brown and blue
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
Summer Solstice
"Everybody knows that the change is coming
"Everybody knows that the deck is stacked"
Leonard Cohen
In Colorado, the Cache La Poudre is burning
That's where they hid the gunpowder
Has it blown yet?
In the Southeast Asia Enterprise Zone
The suicide nets are ready for another night's harvest
Do we understand that our beautiful electric screens
Are polished with blood?
In Syria, the death squads are arming
For another day in the abattoir
Everyone is ready for the bodies
I called out to you in the night
I dreamed you loved me
From the bottom of your soul
In the morning, your e-mail address
Was blocked, texts came back forlorn
The earth is crying out
But Jimi is so long gone
No one understands
And the wind howls alone
In the land of plenty
We're all tucked into our corners
Of the unlimited cage match
Our abs are ripped
Our tattoos look good
But our eyes are empty.
Winter is coming.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 12:42 AM UTC
4)
I moved into the woods
built a little cabin, below the rocks
and covered by the trees;
yet I had visitors
who had come astray into the wilderness
Someone wanting space for the night:
“Is there enough room in your cabin?”
“Why,” I said, “there’s plenty all round”
I was vegetarian
but the destitute offered themselves to me -
the religious might say: *God fed me
even in the wilderness!* Ha!
A wandering woman one evening,
she offered love in return
for shelter that night
She let me lick, taste her flesh
“Bite me,” she said
offering a foretaste in our foreplay
Why would they not leave me? –
these wanderers, the intruding world
No, I had not come in like Thoreau
or the Unabomber – but maybe
like the misanthrope Timon of Athens...
afraid of my own hate; but the innocent
seemed to be drawn in as to a...an...abattoir
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 5:11 PM UTC
When in the pasture
They don't offend;
We avert disaster,
When they're penned.
But that crusted crap
Is everywhere;
If not aware,
We step right in.
We'll scrape the pooh
To no avail,
The smell's
Stuck to our shoes.
We can't quell
The **** we're in.
There's one steaming
On my walk,
Leading to my door.
Leave your keys
When you leave,
That patty leads
To court.
The Internet's beset
With bullish threats;
Hard to miss
The patties here;
Our lives and much
That we hold dear,
Is shared and smeared
For all to read,
Milking us of privacy;
An abattoir,
It's piracy.
It's utterly insane.
They entice us,
Then enlist us,
Like leading
Cash cows
Down the lane;
Then tap
For one drop more.
Friends may offer
Cow pies
With an aromaticfluence;
They pressure you to choose:
Step right or left,
Then smear you with
Their cocksure ********
What enemy
Could do less?
Shopped pixelled patties
Are reprehensible,
Making one
So susceptible:
You *****
Then starve,
Then lose your hair
Until one day
You disappear.
We get caught up
In the flash,
Of all the stars
And fast cash,
But they have patties
Underfoot,
They slip and slide,
Get clean,
Then smirk.
We can smell'em
On those jerks.
There's a patty
At your boyfriend's place;
You're deep in it
If you're late.
There's a patty
At your girlfriend's place,
And you're deep in it
If she's late.
Some patties
Are so well disguised
In the colours
Of lover's eyes.
Intoned in lover's lures.
But step in it,
They call you *****
Some patties
Are good
At getting you high,
But one mis-step,
And you may die.
There's hidden patties
Lying within,
Crusted beneath
Veneered skin:
They waft with doubt,
Fear and longing;
Side-step that mass
At all costs.
Don't crack the surface.
You're better than
You think.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
**They call me a canker,
they say I'm deceptive,
with an absinthe in my hand,
They call me a cahoot,
Abandoned in an abattoir,
They made me a psychopath,
They hurt me and beat me,
With all they had,
I said I am what I am,
They say am possesed,
With black magic,perhaps,
or maybe just a dark spirit,
So collapsed,
They say I look daunting,
Someone who's flummoxed,
Someone who's forlorn,
And a little hoodlum,
but i simply can't make them understand,
I am a labyrinth,
Full of difficult,
passages and paths,
Through which finding out is complicated,
I've had macabres,
which i handled by machetes,
The madder i got,
The smarter they,fed it,
With heaves of sickness,
they got me misspelt,
They didn't know that,
I, a psychopath,
was "okay" in my own way,
they mistreated me,
Misplaced me,
Misunderstood me,
Underestimated me,**
Look! I've come up!
still they were they,
They didn't stop,
So I cut them,
And beat them,
And scared their crap out!
Hit me with a dagger,
Hit me with a knife,
I'LL STILL BE ME,
EVEN IN MY NEXT LIFE.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
you’re not going are you
today to the edge of your seat
to the corners of insanity?
to the corners at the cinema
nearest the exit
to run off when the demons come
to sleep in the day
below your bed
so the rabbits cannot find you;
and then go for a walk
in the cold of the night
mumbling like Lady Macbeth
maybe now running a fast-food restaurant
and asking each tree in your garden :
*Would you like some
manure with that?*
you’re not going to Extremity Town
today, are you?
to tell the Mayor
he’s taken extreme measures
opening an animal sanctuary;
would he please
open an abattoir instead
where the animals skin humans?
Oh you’re not going
are you
to the bus-stop with a stopwatch
to time how long it takes for the passengers
to **** the driver?
Oh you’re not going are you
in the day or this evening or anytime tonight? -
to see if Jimmy the car mechanic
has diversified on your insistence
and if he now sells
in his garage
lingerie and toothpaste for that special night
and salads and beer and peanuts and spices
for first dates only
O you are going to have a good quiet sleep aren’t you
like owls in hollows
and you won’t offer any surprises to the world?
not today?
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 7:38 AM UTC
You talk about your past lovers like cuts of meat;
The big ******* on this one, the thick thighs on that one, the firm *** on the other.
You call them Chicken, Cow, Pig.
You call me Dear.
I walk into your abattoir of my own accord
and tie myself to the gambrel,
ask you to slaughter me, please, slaughter me.
Always the slaughterer, never the slaughtered,
I want to know what it feels like.
You do as I ask: strip away my skin, slice open my chest, remove my vital organs.
You have to separate my consciousness
from my carcass
to finish.
I am venison, fresh.
You mount my head on your wall
next to the others and
shut my eyes.
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 11:05 AM UTC
Oatmealed and omeletted, start to a dull grey Seattle day
Mutual “Good morning” yawns wait the elevator gruzz
Cheery maid vacumates my room in a swirl of efficiency
Brundling my notes and my PC together I walk to work
Strumphing along beside the fumes of the grundling traffic
Email mountains confabulate the uncoffeed hordes
Typed kerattle the calm before the budget storm
Subterranean stocks desphorror of legal gamblers
Bonehead logic meets dumbling marketing aspirations
Now silent nerbling excuses of cur-whipped executives
Micawber’s message crystal in strangression of promises
Fundamental economics the only possible bankerage
Blood will flow in abattoir of management incastrophies
Doe-like and frembling in the light of impending execration
The stapression painfully personal as reality bites as last
Beer time comfrunks gather early in a huddle of hope
Sheep-like they absorb the tendralations of others’ fears
Remonstressing their misfortune in a depression of dinner
Relaxed at last in a hopefindation of beer goggle logic
Sleepfully staring at the mortgage arreared ceiling
My thankful escape to the Murakamied Sputnik symphony
Harmony in the silence of solitaricious nightcap with Hilton Mark
Wishing I was home now with my cuddlicious girl again
Grateful for loving and living in this aventacular world
I quietly srift off to sleep in a snozzle of sweet dreams
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 9:28 AM UTC
your symptoms are mine. we attach dead cells to living gods, you and i.
Golgotha spawn, writhe in leather trousers
to harlequin the marrow of our dire pipes !
to leap and jeer in tandem
that's how love does the impossible
with your mundane.
we are the abattoir of our stoic cow
your symptoms are mine. i see how you might think me mad; you not i.
but this is the dream fleck of your unkissed
a sweltering bloat of frozen hope
flogging the wolf in a gleam
of campfire exodus
and dust.
your nexus is the heart of the most free, a slim gorge of Krakens
yawning fresh hell and fjords of unconquerable silence.
yours is the tomb I am used too.
where we resurrect
we die laughing.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:37 AM UTC
you’re not going are you
today to the edge of your seat
to the corners of insanity?
to the corners at the cinema
nearest the exit
to run off when the demons come
to sleep in the day
below your bed
so the rabbits cannot find you;
and then go for a walk
in the cold of the night
mumbling like Lady Macbeth
maybe now running a fast-food restaurant
and asking each tree in your garden :
Would you like some
manure with that?
you’re not going to Extremity Town
today, are you?
to tell the Mayor
he’s taken extreme measures
opening an animal sanctuary;
would he please
open an abattoir instead?
Oh you’re not going
are you
to the bus-stop with a stopwatch
to time how long it takes for the passengers
to **** the driver?
Oh you’re not going are you
in the day or this evening or anytime tonight
to see if Jimmy the car mechanic
has diversified on your insistence
and if he now sells
in his garage
lingerie and toothpaste for that special night
and salads and beer and peanuts
for first dates only
O you are going to have a good quiet sleep aren’t you
and you won’t offer any surprises to the world?
not today?
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 10:03 PM UTC
trace patterns that never
cease to replicate.
I keep you going forever,
pop culture ******
but my fickle mind is ever-changing.
talk of overdose, divorce,
ego, graffiti.
I paint all across your face
my own art.
I make you taste the love
and hate and love and
wait
tell me what to do to rebel.
do I cut myself and lap up the metal red
in carnal hunger?
frenzy me in music and
******** misconduct policies.
no, pop culture ******
no, no, no, no, no!
help me out, man
plead again!
pick me up, man
dyfunctional family ain't near enough
petrol to sustain this fire or keep a smile
and I got no match to strike in the first place.
now my
destination unknown
the
first stop suicide
the priest asks me to produce my rosary.
I can't.
he says,
"fame or martyrdom then? we don't have enough to
give you both, kid."
I chose ambiguity as the way to go,
no street
no job
skipped the name.
pop culture ****** wants out of the puzzle and
into the game.
pop culture ****** wants out of the computer and
into the machine.
we tell them life is pretty.
abattoir for slaughterhouse so
no one asks questions.
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 2:13 PM UTC
You park your lard *** **** on the skin of a cow and call it your new leather settee,
strap your feet into hide worked boots and stride across the Earth, all at the height of fabulous fashion.
Slap another slab of flesh on the barbecue and call it steak
(rare please) right next to the rack of ribs sizzling,
another brimming mooing cattle truck pulls into the abattoir,
and they say all the farts,of all the cattle, we keep eating, is destroying the climate all by themselves, but you wont find that information on the menu in a fast food shop serving burgers by the millions, or the main discussion at a barbecue, because lets face it, the meat in front of your nose has done all its farting, and its far too late to help save the World by some form of self-denial.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 2:11 PM UTC
Billions of sheep
Following false bellwether's
To the abattoir
Starving, they jostle for crumbs
While those dressed as wolves eat lamb
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 2:03 PM UTC
I'm not religious.
I'm not even spiritual.
I'm just a cold, soft Vulcan.
The system of the down
has isolated me here
to think, which is what a Vulcan
does all the time.
It's really pointless.
It is desert, hot and cold
served in deprivation,
meditation, and
solitude.
The system has been doing
this for eons.
It's called increasing
systemic risk when stressed.
I make a cognitive chunk
for you to cogitate
over coffee.
Picture this.
Wandering Boy Scouts (BS)
in their pickup trucks,
helpful, strong,
vicious when aimless,
efficiently cruel,
mechanized abattoir makers
mass pit diggers,
merit badge takers.
Smell the BS.
It all goes into baking
gooey brownie BS,
repugnantly pungent,
and redolent of sweet
burning flesh.
Stressed, the down system
spits BS out
randomly to nucleate,
and procreate if possible.
Breeding a new Brand,
with Cult leader Classes
and all the -isms.
Visionaries with their caries;
Pushers with agendas hidden;
Leaders steadfast in conviction,
taking a nation, against
all odds, in Battling Bulges,
****** lines hidden
within clean, pleated
leather skirts
that still reveal penciled
seams up straight
shaved bare legs.
This is how the system
shakes itself; auto
****** asphyxiation.
Vulcan's never shake
the bars of their cells
because there's no barring
except Great Walls
forbidding, with a wink,
killing each other.
To be thy Greek brother's keeper,
is to cut not that brother man,
but the other brother man
down with BS fervor and S&M;
madness, before bondaging
his wounds in mummified
State, taped shut
with a healing kiss.
To have dominion
over the animals
means a bludgeoned
pleasure, or
transplanted
desire.
Dominion to exploit
blunted, unconditional,
emotional resources,
until the system
gels again, vaginally
or astrolly whole.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 11:11 PM UTC
The trees outside their classroom door
so recently were green.
Now they all are bare and brown;
great evil they have seen.
I cannot, will not, speculate
what drove that youth insane:
or why he murdered children
then put a bullet in his brain.
The Season now is dreary;
Christmas greetings go unsaid;
Presents never to be opened
and even Hope seems dead.
A grateful Father hugs his girl,
Her classmates all are dead.
Their classroom is an abattoir:
Finger-painted Red.
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 10:20 PM UTC
*you are not a delicate lamb.
you are not destined for the abattoir.*
don't look at them with doe eyes
hidden behind a film of your own pain
(as well as that of others).
if he touches you
don't take it gently.
don't let him push you down and steal the laughter from your eyes and the song from your smile.
*you were not born to be slaughtered.
you are not a piece of meat.*
you were born with a smile on your lips
don't let their selfishness take it away.
fight back
don't let them treat you like a lamb that's been bred for their pleasure.
fight back.
you are a pillar of strength
you are a goddess.
your body is your temple.
*you are not a lamb
do not let them slaughter you.*
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
When we got back together for the first time, in that
field after Christmas,
I still remember the cold.
Although warm from chasing a dog,
white as snow,
I was cold.
Winter’s air whipped against my cheeks
and you were there on the phone.
It was cruel.
He was sent to the abattoir
and we were happy.
And now you say you like men in denim jackets
and thick rimmed glasses.
Sorry my eyes are perfect. Sorry I like practical coats for the winter. Sorry I am not ginger.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
Believe not those perfect
and so enticing words;
thou shalt be like an ox
heading to the abattoir.
Oct 6, 2012
Oct 6, 2012 at 7:18 PM UTC
The door slammed shut so long ago,
your shadow in the breeze,
I find the pencil and the song you wrote
that brought me to my knees.
Christmas came on lower branches,
the cheap seats, the lonely guitar,
I sang to the person who you used to be
and smoked out who you are.
Even now I am still diseased,
still struggling to find a G-d.
Thought I found him in the autumn leaves,
before I was certain, he was gone.
The window shook on its hind legs
as the widow swallowed her sleep,
the spider came out from his abattoir,
all searching in darkness deep.
In a single bed, teeth grit shut,
twisting sheets in the street-light glow,
I hold my pillow like a brand-new woman,
exchanging heat for the money I owe.
Even now I am still fatigued,
indebted to G-d and home-grown guilt.
I have learned to grow and plant my seed
far from shadows that bring me to wilt.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC
I REACH OUT TO THE GREAT UNKOWN
with the natural hesitance of a child
nursed on plastic american protestantism,
always prosperity gospel or pariah,
answers just hidden behind a preacher's palm;
in retrospect i wonder what questions those
republican suburbanites crippled in their hatred
came to submit at the foot of the cross.
saccharine and soulless every sunday,
the rot reliably festering under the church stage,
brimstone traded for the wasteland of undecaying concrete.
i was baptized by a stranger in stagnant water,
now swaddled in the arms of a man who is not my Father.
i'm always the cold one. bad circulation when i'm turning away.
that abattoir left a pulsating wound at the
center of my chest— starved weeping
sickly and red.
every sunday, the worst thing i could do was be honest.
i worship with my hands,
i falter for words;
i never got to know the Lord in my youth
because He never called me back.
i find fragments of Him in lovers' eyes—
fingertips glancing over flesh as if
forbidden fruit, sweet real and warmed by sunlight.
i think God was always this;
physicality, connection,
the simple intimacy of making someone else laugh.
the only time i ever felt devout
was when i was walking to get an arizona tea
at the gas station next to the church with my friends.
stumbling over asphalt still sincere in my vulnerability.
Mar 5, 2022
Mar 5, 2022 at 8:05 PM UTC
Supposing creatures had a voice,
Would they really say that we could eat them?
Would they really step forward willingly to the abattoir?
Like Lamb to the slaughter…
Or do they too speak profound thoughts?
Could they or could they not,
We may never find out this,
But, surely we must believe they are more
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
Could they think from a new perspective?
Evolve or Die? **** or be Killed?
Could they really want to be sacrificed?
Their deathbed a slab of concrete,
An axe as their executioner,
And a butcher’s as their tomb…
Their only purpose in life nothing more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
Should they really see a new lease of life?
Given the freedom of the grassy plains,
Or left picked apart, the bones scattered,
The prime cuts selected, The gristle dumped.
The only purpose as food for a higher being,
The only question on another’s lips.
How much are you willing to pay?
After all…
It’s nothing more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
After all is slaughter any different to hunting?
The axe as the fangs, the predator as the executioner,
The prey is the cattle, the wildebeest, and the animal.
The thrill in the chase, but not in the capture,
So why does it end in slaughter?
Surely the prize is a little bit more,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
We may argue and we may debate,
The civil rights of these animals.
But so many people cannot see,
They think them merely as a meal.
So blind to sight and yet so advanced,
But nobody sees the hidden obliviousness,
For they cannot see animals are more than,
Than just a simple slab of Meat.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC
for reasons unknown to me,
the urgent need to commence
this one with the words:
Oh man,
this is, this be, challenging,
but these words were found on the drying rack in my
abattoir, my nickname for my unending Draft Day
filings
and kept poking despite another overnight splash,
the product pool is full of creativity's synaptic junctions,
a wild night of up~writing, from god knows when,
and here it is 7:18, there are obligations, needs that
a demand a face to face meeting, tho the troops are
in their boarded beds, gently snoring…
so quick, to the sizable task at hand
the search is perpetual, not eternal,
for no one comes forward, willing
to admit, they have been around
since King David's time, practicing
this verbal chicanery game of using
words to guide the perplexed, unless,
of course, unless someone you might
know might be a big fat fibber
right about now, you're exasperatingly seething,
"where the heck is a poem gonna show its face?"
well, and now,
some struggle mightily, to ascertain
who and what is their uniqueness,
oft turned and twisted, caught between
competing entities, asking quests that
take lifetimes to resolute, and when
you look at the typewriter roll silently
choking the white cloud surrounding it,
you, you want to cry/pray out aloud, who, who
shall I be, to make a completion between
the person inside of me. the person I think
I want to be, dream of be-coming,
and yes it is too, eternal, for as long as humans
can think dream, create and anticipate, we all
will nonetheless perpetually search for the other
someone, sometwo
in us…
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 3:46 PM UTC