By Dobbin, July 1996
Born on the moors,
To a caring mare,
The rain on my face,
The wind in my hair.
Joy in my eyes,
A tiny bright foal,
With love in my heart,
That one day would fall.
Growing and learning,
Upon the wild hills,
Racing the wind,
A young colt thrills.
One day a big lorry,
With humans inside,
Drags off my brother,
Where dark tales abide.
My mother is frightened,
My father is brave,
My friend who was free,
Will now be a slave.
And then a great army,
Of twenty strong men,
Capture my small herd,
Of my father and ten.
We are shoved in a dark truck,
Which rumbles along,
And are scared for our lives.
(which don't have long).
The food, there is none,
And the water is less,
In the tiny dim light,
We wait in the mess.
And at last we emerge,
Into daylight again,
Where we're jabbed at with forks,
From the hands of the men,
And herded through barriers,
Narrow and tall,
But I still have my mother,
And so I don't fall.
But I smell a strange thing,
An instinctive stench,
And it so frightens me,
That I twist and I wrench,
And I squeeze and I squirm,
And I try to break free,
But these tree trunks of metal,
Are too tough for me.
The whinnies are loud,
But my mother stays quiet,
Though I think that she knows
The reasons for riot.
So I calm just a little,
And trust in her age,
When I see a dark stallion,
Exploding in rage.
His hooves clash on fencing,
And the forks smite him down,
And he coughs up red fluid,
And quickly he drowns.
And the men drag him off,
With a rope round his head,
And I squeal with terror,
At seeing him dead.
And my mother shows fear now,
For herself and her son,
But the bars are too tall,
They've already won.
And we're inside the building,
Where the smell is so strong,
That even this young foal,
Knows what's going on.
And I don't try to struggle,
As I wade through the blood,
My mum says she loves me,
And I knew that she would.
For that was the moment
Before we must part,
As the man with the knife,
Jabs it into her heart.
And stabs her again,
And once more in the breast,
And she squeals and she dies,
And falls like the rest,
To the moving conveyor,
Which beckons my soul,
Then the knife falls upon me,
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