Heidi StephensonThe Cow Beater
Animal Rights Poetry By Heidi Stephenson From All-Creatures.org

Poems of compassion dedicated to the non-human animals who share this planet with us and the people who fight for them.

The Cow Beater
By Heidi Stephenson

Three female cows,
three tired, female cows,
three bereaved, female cows

Pregnancy – birthing…loss
Pregnancy – birthing…loss
Pregnancy – birthing…loss

dare to RESIST
their slavemaster,
the constant kidnapper,
the killer
of their calves;
the profiteering
milk snatcher,
the “contract milker”
- their cruel
oppressor.

And so he BEATS them,
BEATS them
with a steel pipe,
with hard steel
…until they reel.

He BEATS these benign
bovine girls
repeatedly,
in order to “educate”
“those three grumpy bitches”
(female dogs,
to the fair-minded,)
in a LESSON they
will never forget.
The punishment,
more financially sensible,
(he considers,)
than his first, dark thought…
“slaughter!”

He singles out
one poor cow
for special ‘treatment,’
thrashing her tender legs,
with an alkathene pipe
and a metal bar,
so badly, that
bruised and swollen,
she struggles
to walk.

And he spray-paints
her broken body,
her broken heart,
her broken spirit,
with a HATE slogan,
to add to her pain,
her humiliation,
her degradation.
He defiles his most
hated victim
with the words:
“I AM AN ARSEHOLE!!!”

Three gentle beings
who should inspire LOVE.
Three bereaved mothers
who should evoke COMPASSION.
Three young cows
who should be roaming free now -
with their shot-dead babies.

A shocking case
of anti-animal hatred:
“MISOTHERY” -
the gravest form
of speciesism.

The female judge
rules in favour
of the farmer,
and vehemently against
the witness-bearers;
to discourage any further
evidence-gathering,
any further truth-telling,
to limit all
future inclinations
to expose.

All five charges
are dropped.
The “cogent evidence,”
(the judge’s own words,)
from a month’s worth
of secret filming
in the milking shed,
is deemed
inadmissible.

Justice upturned.
Truly blind.
The scales askew.
All notions of “just”
- utterly
betrayed.

Outrageous: Cow-Beating Video Thrown Out in Court on the Grounds it Would Encourage Undercover Filming in the Future

Misothery is hatred and contempt for animals. See, for example, Jim Mason’s book Misothery: Contempt for Animals and Nature, Its Origins, Purposes and Repercussions

©Heidi Stephenson, July 2020

abused dairy Cow
The contract milker's paint job on one of the farm's cows was posted on social media.


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