commuters

When they're shuffling silently at the station, they're barely animated slabs of meat. Only when they talk do they come alive - radios made of flesh tuned to a station I don't know. But I'm reading Bukowski, so I know there are other actual humans out there.

It reminds me of this poem by the St. Lucian poet Kendel Hipployte, from his book Birthright.




ABATTOIR

for human consumption, livestock,
red flesh slashed, hang on hooks

above blood, above rubber boots
which do not feel, above the dumb-shocked

throat-cut carcasses that had baulked
all the way, but still went

the cows, goats, sheep, all decently
drained of their lives

and functionally, dying for a purpose
although, alive, they’d never known it

look hard, feel no remorse:
we crawled out from the ice-age

predators, remember? — this domesticated carnage
is necessary, keeps us going

only, observe sometimes your feet walk
stiffly; sinews in your neck

contract; tendons of your life cringe
as you approach the work-place

inside, observe those heads bowed over desks,
those shoulders hunched, those lowing eyes

so bitterly familiar, observe all those
good functionaries accomplishing their tasks

watch the overhead clock, its blades which slice
deep into the living flesh of hours

but who is the butcher? and what is
the purpose of this systematic sacrifice?