Animal Rights Poetry

Don't come here with your problems
No matter how big or how small.
We've seen practically everything.
Whatever you say, we've heard it all.

My kid developed allergies,
We're moving, we've no room.
We can no longer care for him.
So, please, keep him here with you.

We have so many animals 
I just can't see that he can stay.
You get mad at me
And beg, "ISN'T THERE A WAY?"

I try to explain the problem,
But it falls on deaf ears.
You go ahead and sign the papers
Through all of your tears.

As he is carried into the back room,
You put the blame on me.
Don't you understand YOU are the problem?
Is it that hard to see?

I'm so tired of fighting back,
I just stand & shake my head. 
One more innocent life is taken,
Nothing more can be said. 

*~*Elisa Murphy*~*

They called him Rags, he was just a cur
But twice on the Western Line,
That little old bunch of faithful fur
Had offered his life for mine. 

And all he got was bones and bread
And the leaving of soldiers' grub,
But he'd give his heart for a pat on the head,
A friendly tickle or rub. 

And Rags got home with the regiment,
And then, in the breaking away--,
Well, whether they stole him, or whether he went, 
I am not prepared to say. 

But we mustered out, some to beer and gruel,
And some to sherry and shad,
And I went back to the Sawbones School,
Where I was an undergrad. 

One day they took us budding M.D.'s
To one of those institutes
Where they demonstrate every new disease
By means of bisected brutes. 

They had one animal tacked and tied
And slit like a full-dressed fish,
With his vitals pumping away inside
As pleasant as one might wish. 

I stopped to look like the rest, of course,
And the beast's eyes leveled mine;
His short tail thumped with a feeble force,
And he uttered a tender whine. 

It was Rags, yes, Rags! who was martyred there,
Who was quartered and crucified,
And he whined that whine which is doggish prayer
And he licked my hand--and died. 

And I was no better in part nor whole
Than the gang I was found among,
And his innocent blood was on the soul
Which he blessed with his dying tongue. 

Well! I've seen men go to courageous death
In the air, on sea, on land!
But only a dog would spend his breath
In a kiss for his murderer's hand. 
And if there's no heaven for love like that,
For such four-legged fealtly--well!
If I have any choice, I tell you flat,
I'll take my chance in hell.

by Edmund Vance Cooke

So many gods, so many creeds,
So Many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

I am the voice of the voiceless:
Through me, the dumb shall speak;
Till the Deaf world’s ear be made to hear
The cry of the wordless weak.

From street, from cage and from kennel,
From jungle and stall, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
Of the mighty against the frail

For love is the true religion,
And love is the law sublime;
And all is wrought, where love is not 
Will die at the touch of time.

Oh shame on the mothers of mortals
Who have not stopped to teach
Of the sorrow that lies in dear, dumb eyes,
The sorrow that has no speech.

The same Power formed the sparrow
That fashioned man-the King;
The God of the whole gave a living soul
To furred and to feathered thing.

And I am my brother’s keeper,
And I will fight his fight;
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.