Pleasure Me Stupid

Pleasure Me Stupid

Sighs of relief, now the brutish

days of chain-smoking laboratory

beagles are over. They’re over, right?

We got all Body-Shopped-up and free-

ranged. Animal exploitation stopped

decades ago. Didn’t it? Not quite …

*

Shredding or gassing for male chicks.

Bolt-guns for cattle. And, with one

shake of a baby’s rattle, it’s calves too.

Sont ils fou? We still squirt shampoo into

rabbit’s eyes to save our soft people-

peepers from a little sting. Cut off a

shark’s fin, why not? The shark sinks

beneath the waves, unable to hunt

or swim. Mmm, good soup, though.

Can you think of anything crueller?

Don’t fret. There’s plenty. Torture and

exterminations are us. Refined palates

demand boiling crustaceans alive.

And who knows what hell resides

at the factory farms of Mato Grosso.

While the noble rat gets the cream.

You haven’t seen? Electrodes in the

brain — pleasuring themselves to death

with a tiny pedal. Wouldn’t you? Will

you? What bliss. It’s coming, it’s

coming. The meta-verse of earthly

delights. Prometheus unbound.

But at what cost?

*

And with a sultry sideways glance in

a Black Mirror, we’ll be sent all a-quiver.

And agog. Fucking in the virtual fog.

Eyes glazed, tongues a-loll. Pleasure

me stupid, baby, then I’ll do you. But

let’s test it on animals first.