This is a cynical little poem inspired by an actual news story I heard on the radio today. I don’t have all the facts, so the piece is slightly fictionalized and may not be entirely accurate, but it seemed like an interesting cautionary fable. There is some profanity and sarcasm. Please don’t get triggered, this is a satirical piece. I found the whole situation tragicomic.
There are 20 baboons too many at the Nuremberg Zoo
whacking each other senseless over females, food, space.
Plenty of bloody noses in their enclosure, too;
with their prolific breeding, the Zoo cannot keep pace.
They’re biting, spitting, scratching, and screeching at the crew.
(Not unlike any other cramped-in and stressed-out race –
No privacy when fucking and long queues at the loo,
imagine the dire impact on the homicide rates.)
The management, meanwhile, has a brilliant plan
(Achtung, there is a twist in the plot):
Enough brutish monkeying around in the pen –
baboons are an insufferable lot,
they like to make a din –
so, some will be granted a more… permanent spot:
underground real estate to rest in.
Some may be fed to more ferocious beasts.
This we don’t know. But what we know for sure:
barring an awful few exported (but not missed),
the other rowdy fellas will end up as manure.
Out in the wild, it seems, they cannot be released –
God only knows what trouble these urban types can lure.
It’s easier for all if their lives should cease –
it's scientific fact that culling’s a good cure.
There are eight billion people on our planet Earth.
Their numbers are still growing, consumption is en vogue.
Should all insist on fortunes and room for a wide girth
Compute how soon we’ll drop decorum and go rogue.
'The solution is clear,' say the powers that be
(while brand new weapons are procured and sold):
'As always, to kill or be killed – that’s the key.'
This scenario will never get old.
Writer Between Worlds 