Love poems. For cannibals or vegetarians

I love you he said with his tongue in her cheek
Adrian Henri

Perhaps you don’t love me at all,
but at least you sew the buttons on my coat
which is more than my wife does.
Adrian Henri

There are fascists

there are
fascists
pretending
to be
humanitarians

like
cannibals
on a health kick
eating only vegetarians
Roger McGough

Vegetarians

Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.
Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.
That a peach bleeds when torn apart.
Do you believe an orange insensitive
to thumbs gouging out its flesh?
That tomatoes spill their brains painlessly?
Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,
the soil’s little lobsters.
Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt
when peas are ripped from the scrotum,
the hide flayed off sprouts,
cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.

Throw in the trowel
and lay down the hoe.
Mow no more
Let my people go!
Roger McGough

There was a knock on the door. It was the meat.

There was a knock on the door.
It was the meat. I let it in.
Something freshly slaughtered
Dragged itself into the hall.

Into the living-room it crawled.
I followed. Though headless,
It headed for the kitchen
As if following a scent.

Straight to the oven it went
And lay there. Oozing softly to itself.
Though moved, I moved inside
And opened wide the door.

I switched to Gas Mark Four.
Set the timer. And grasping
The visitor by a stump
Humped it home and dry.

Did I detect a gentle sigh?
A thank you? The thought that I
Had helped a thing in need
Cheered me as I turned up the heat.

Two hours later the bell rang.
It was the meat.
Roger McGough

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