The Huntsman Wants to Kill

 

The golfer wants a hole in one

The cricketer to score a ton

The sprinter to be number one

The huntsman wants to kill

 

The footballer to win the league

The cyclist to avoid fatigue

But the huntsman wants none of these

The huntsman wants to kill

 

Ignore the child-on-pony pose

For cameras at country shows

Beneath the pomp and pompous clothes

The huntsman wants to kill

 

Called from the Field, the vilest trade

Is carried out by those with spades

Their presence proves this grim charade

The huntsman wants to kill

 

The hounds are seen to run in packs

On busy roads and railway tracks

There’s no ‘trail’ here – it’s just a fact

The huntsman wants to kill

 

To flush a fox and watch it run

Is his idea of perfect fun

Content when violent death has come

The huntsman’s had his kill

 

We’d educate him if we could

No sport should ever call for blood

Enforce the ban, so that, for good –  

The huntsman cannot kill

 

 

 

Inglorious Twelfth

 

The day has finally arrived.

Factory farms have despatched to estates,

the cramped cages emptied, the fate

of the grouse is being sealed where money swears.

 

The moor has been burnt,

the snared fox gone, the harrier, the crow

are missing. The records will show

the mountain hare was slaughtered for just cause.

 

The feathered targets are wary.

Beaters bellow fear into grouse to fly

into butt-concealed guns, the sky

filled with terrified life, then gunshots and death.

 

The moor is now scarred

with carcass. Life that began cramped and caged

has ended in death for ‘sport’, waged

for the thrill of killing: Glorious killing.