Giant Panda Blues
I
Breeding giant pandas
In captivity;
People stopping to take
Snaps of the new birth,
And a documentary
Team busy clucking.
One scientist tries
To teach a young
Panda dogtraining…
Another seizes the
Baby panda from
It parents.
And they imagine
The are breeding
These pands
To release into
The wild…
II
They can’t make out
Why the birth
Has so much
Blood. Until at last
They see the
Blood is the
Mother’s bitten lip.
Only a metal bar
To chew on
To let out the pain –
Not a branch
Not anything.
Nobody thought
To give her that.
\to let the birth
Occur anywhere
But a concrete
Compound.
Anyone for that
Scene in the movie
Where the apes
Have taken over and
Can speak and its
The humans who
Are dumb?
Walled up
Together a
Woman and a man
and the apes wonder
Why they don’t
Reproduce in
Cages and the bloke
Is thinking – you
Must be joking!
And how can we
Wonder why some
Don’t breed well
In captivity?
III
Teaching tricks
Or feeding with
Bottles, not
Letting bears climb
Trees in case they
Drop.
This is anthropomorphism
If ever it was anything.
Making these pandas
Subject to our means
Of owner and pet,
Shepherd and sheepdog,
Master and slave.
IV
But if we are
Going to pretend
They’re human
In whole or
In part and subject to
Our methods, I’ll
Tell you
What they’re
Thinking.
They’re thinking
Bloody hell! Not
Even something to
Chew on to lesson
The agony of birth!
Bastards – where’s my
Baby gone?
Thinking
Who’s that fool
Saying ‘Sit’? I’ll
Have him! Who the
F**k does he
Think I am?
Thinking
God, look at this
Place, grey, grey,
Peeping toms
Everywhere, forget
Romance, more like
Prison with paparazzi
Twenty four seven.
And lastly thinking
Better dead
Than this…
