The Butcher And The Sheep Poem by Refai Tommas

Having nothing else to be done,
The Butcher decided to slay some sheep for fun,
He sharpened his knife and teeth
He lay hidden behind a tree
Waiting for a young lamb to flee

An innocent lamb was gazing alone
Away from the herd and its mother
The Butcher bounced on the lamb's neck
And with a swift 'strategic' move,
Separated its head from the body

The Butcher burst into hysterical laughter
The other sheep burst into blazing fury
Blood burst forth into the green grass
Blood that gave the other sheep an itching feeling
Feeling that enough is enough!

The sheep got started dreaming of Salvation
The end of the Butcher's brutal domination,
The end of his inexcusable extermination
They started dreaming of gazing in other 'free' fields
Fields that are fence-free and butcher-free
They began pondering if they could do it
They stared planning how they could do it
They enjoyed the possibility that they could do it
The dream became a thought
The thought turned into an obsession
Which, in turn, evolved into a determination
To fight their way out to freedom
To have their say in their kingdom

Without further consideration
Or hesitation or meditation,
And with one spontaneous move,
They all took off the chains of slavery
And demolished the barriers of fear
They wore instead 'ivory' clothes
Decorated with olives and roses

The Butcher saw the threat coming
He could not sleep that night
He was swelling with freight
'What if they come to realize
That though they were armless
And harmless, they outnumbered him,
That they can kick him off what is
'Rightfully his'?
He dwelled on this thought for hours and hours
And held numerous discussions with his neighbours
Some suggested brutal annihilation
Others supported gradual and 'merciful' extermination
Yet others still saw no point in all that
And expressed their fear at the sheep's determination

Before the struggle could even begin
The sheep took a deep breath within
Each looked inside and outside
Each contemplated the other with piercing eyes
At that very moment,
A realization struck the sheep,
For, to their deepest shock,
They realized for the first time
That they were not really sheep
That they were not actually cheap
They realized that though the Butcher has tried
To scare them into forgetting who they really were,
They were in fact humans, with ambitions, with rights
Humans who will peacefully fight

The Butcher took the first view
He brought his rifle and shot
Indiscriminately at the armless sheep
The bullet deeply pierced into ten sheep
The sheep had to creep into some sort of shelter
The Butcher claimed they were wolves hidden among the sheep
Wolves, who came out of the blue
Wolves, who attacked humans
Wolves who terrorized humans
Wolves, who could, in a flash, slaughter hundreds of armed humans
The sheep flat out denied
And for an independent committee applied
To verify the claims
To clear the sheep's names
No committee came,
Since all fell on deaf ears
Other humans turned their backs on the ongoing slaughter
Of innocent sheep
Every now and then, a free voice would call out for help
Only to be silenced by brutal bullets
Specifically invented to go deeply into the sheep
Invented to silence the voices of the free sheep

Till the last breath
Till victory or death