A thursday morning of rat-at-tat-tat
the ghoulish sound of shot gun volleys
carried from the valley floor
in echoed form this so called sport
reminds me of mans folly.
A pheasant shoot,
tweeded suits and four by fours
where gentlemen, locked and loaded
unlock masculinity
and class themselves apart from we
to feel the power a shotgun wields
in fields where dumb birds rise.
A grand at least the hunters feast,
to spread lead across the land
and fill the air with the music of death
and the shriek of gamebirds falling.
Game, misnomered into facile aims
of a so-called shooting party
where the sounds of Gaza or South Sudan
appear in the hills which surround me.
Gamekeepers, shaming the honour of keeping this land
raising chicks for this pleasures pursuit.
Rat-at-tat-tat, the waft of gunpowder’s pain
at the countrysides cost.
I picture them as Elma Fudd
it almost makes me smile until i remember
that death is not a game.
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