From “Hog Butcher to the World” to the British Library Rare Books and Music Reading Room
His father’s father worked where hanging screams
Were not allowed. The carcases had had
Their windpipes slashed. Warm blood in gasping streams
Had fallen past his eyes. His needs forbade
His conscience. Sentiment had come to play
In sonnets where his grandson wrote. No stains
From slaughterhouse had come from where they flay
The cattle or the hogs. He read refrains
From Shakespeares, Marlowes, all that lot. No thought
Of spilling guts from pigs intruded in
His notes for poetry or for a plot
Of tragedy, no thought of scalded skin.
The bristles scraped away are not seen here.
The grimace on the pig was not a fleer.
~ Phillip Whidden
by phillipw | Feb 28, 2025 | AR, CH, WH |