Wheel of Meat

I never thought I’d sell out,

and abandon right livelihood

to hawk gas station meats;

I might as well be a butcher,

or a slaughterer, or a cannibal,

or a slaver dealing blood and sweat.

 

But I thought wrong: here I am,

trading labor for wages & meat for wages

and sanity for the nausea smell of grease

and the cries of beef & pork & chicken

echoing dully in my mind..

 

I will never touch meat again.

I will never eat another egg.

I will never betray my heart

with another convenient

bite of cheese.

 

But still I must put my shoulder to this cruel wheel of meat,

grinding my dignity into precooked bits of sausage

and slicing my convictions from death to death.

 

OM MANI PADME HUM

May all animals be free.

May all animals be happy.

May all animals be enlightened.

May all gas station employees be free.

May all rotten pizza cooks be happy.

May all delivery boys be enlightened.

 

May every business that deals in death burn to the ground.

Amen.

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