Egotists declaw the beasts
of their dangerous burdens
– of knife edge, soft pads
trekking hunger with panted
breath hung in arid air, before mercilessly
staining them with the blood of gun shots.
Poachers declaw the beasts
of their precious cargo;
– of motherhood, calves and memories
– of backward superstition’s faux medicine
– of life, their sanctuary and freedom
dripping with the blood of machetes.
Cowards, greed and ignorance aid extinction’s
drizzle with cold calculation and callous evil.
Conveyor belt meals for the wake
of vultures feed the only other winners
in the game; the scourge this anthropocene age.