I read my new cycle of poems dedicated to my dear friend of over forty years, Regan Russell, titled FIVE POEMS FOR REGAN, at Rally for Regan in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Sunday, August 23. The event was sponsored by AT WAR FOR ANIMALS NIAGARA.
Regan was killed by a truck full of inhumanly abused pigs at the Fearman’s Slaughterhouse in Burlington, two months ago, as Regan protested Premier Ford’s AG-GAG law which, like other of his machinations, has been branded dictatorial, undemocratic, and inhumane.
Some have called the deed murder. Regan was bringing water to these pigs and the driver saw she was there. Shouldn’t an inquiry be necessary, even in Ford’s misogynistic Ontario?
FIVE POEMS FOR REGAN by James Strecker © 2020, James Strecker
REGAN BRINGS WATER TO THE PIGS
Regan brings water to the pigs.
For this deed of mercy, she is
killed – some say murdered – where
they, so gentle and tortured, die.
Her body is dragged in pieces to
the slaughterhouse she condemns.
This house of legal cruelty kills
ten thousand innocent pigs each day.
But behold, our government bows
down low to their butcher masters.
Our government makes laws to
protect their backers of blood-red
hands that drip needless suffering
and pain. Our government decrees
that we close our eyes, that we
become inhuman to such pain.
They believe a pig does not matter,
no more than women battered, abused.
Look here, outside, a woman ate
flesh, she shook a fist at Regan’s
face, she spit on Regan’s skin. Is it
she who murdered my friend of
humane purpose, my friend who
knew all life sacred and the same?
Regan’s gentle hand said “No” to
this woman’s curse. Regan brought
easing water to these pigs in agony,
these pigs concealed from the world.
But if the death of pigs must
prevail, by a cowardly government’s
decree, let darkness now consume
these men who safeguard butchers
with their insane passion to slaughter.
They give murder a legal name
and would make us killers too.
But Regan would raise the bar of
your humanity, and speak kindness
for all, a new beginning, Regan
would see in pigs not dollars and
coins of commerce, but the soul
of life that you, without a soul,
would claim for yourself.
Yet, if destiny does not agree that
in time we see eye to eye, for once
have the guts to answer this question:
If you kill animals, and refuse to
hear their pain, why should you,
so inhuman, not also die like pigs?
A NEW MORNING
Outside a window, the sunlight
sounds of morning light. Dawn
caresses the awakening of a
piglet’s eyes. No need of a killing
religion here, for lives already holy.
Man is now not much of lasting
consequence, man destroys at will
and too long has been. When we
think, you and I, of humankind, only
devils and cowards come to mind.
But it sometimes comes to be,
when love is shared for animals,
that one human being is able to
trust, and even feel hope, in such
love from the heart of another.
Regan’s passion was her humility,
she knew a pig – or any animal –
her equal. The killer, by a bloodied
pig’s death defined, adds up to
nothing more than base brutality.
Let rage be my endless echo when
I speak in contempt of such a man.
THOSE BUTCHERS
Their mantra is free enterprise,
They have conquered a world
now ruined by all of us.
We sit in carnage made
for profit by only a few.
What need we prove?
Why shout once again
the evil that evil men do?
You would have us hear
the wounded pig’s cry
and do nothing. But if such
heartless society kills to eat
meat, it no longer matters
what they have to say.
Their scheme is this, that
we ignore these innocent
pigs in days and nights of pain
you cannot, dare not, imagine
for yourself. But are you
even worthy of the pigs
who have died, still die,
for your butchered dinner?
Tell the world we need no
science to prove a pig can feel.
The pig squeals in pain, the
pig’s eye pleads for mercy of
you, so listen, dammit, and see.
Nothing else needs be said.
And tell the world beware
these men like you: a willful
blindness guides their cruel
hearts. Take care, these men
will make your silence your
own brutality – they will make
your silence your own doom.
ESSENCES
Devotion to the living was her essence.
It must now be ours and as strong.
Regan held high a sign outside the
slaughterhouse, all life to defend: “If
you were in this truck, we would be
here for you too.” Yet, she knew too
well this paradox: the carnivore she
would save can hear loud cries of
suffering, and stand unmoved and
distant like a stone. Some even grin
wide to cause more pain. They
prove themselves masters of nothing.
How many dismissed as lunacy this
woman who dared to stand up for
the wondrous senses in all of life?
Some answered her drunk in loathing
that lives to idly kill. How many held
knives, too eagerly, that hacked sacred,
sentient lives into dead chunks of
flesh.? Their greed called the shots
and made greedy dollars from murder.
Or was it for killing alone they lived
and drank their victims’ blood?
Who knows the mind of one who drove a
transport truck that day? The law merely
said he was careless, the death unintended,
inquiry closed. This killer was so many men
like him, why do they need conceal his name?
TO REGAN
We fused our watches and had a
long due lunch. I held no hope for
overrated man. Uh huh, you said.
You spoke, I nodded yes, I spoke,
you finished my sentences. We were
often, each one, amen to the other.
You said I had been so kind when you
were lost and down. I felt protected by
you when the fire burned us out of home.
Mention animals, we were both one
spirit and fueled alive. Our silences
trusted each other. Now I reach for the
phone to call you, now I put it down.
The system finally killed you, a monster
truck of thirsty, frantic pigs ran over your
compassion. But, Regan, you are stronger,
dead, than any killer’s willful knife.
Your death leaves a wounded emptiness
behind, your death is too cold, too soon
before we are hopeless and old. But
look how many rush to stand with you.
The carnivore still licks his lips, inhales
perfumes of killing and pain. A goon
government would bid you eat more meat.
We already have meat, and the world is
polluted. We already have meat, and we are
dying from it. But your life, your ideals,
now flow like life’s blood itself to our hearts.
Who willed this cruel, unspeakable
irony? You are killed, yet you have won
this round, where murdering men with
their killing toys will always be boys,
and courts cover up the kill. You are
martyred, yes, but your cause of mercy
is now spoken around the world – loud
with gentleness and raging like a storm.
.