Murrey, Matthew

United States, (contemporary)

PIG BRAIN

  1. Kept alive. Thoughtless.
  2. What if it was thinking?
  3. In the thirties, under Stalin,
  4. dogs’ severed heads were vivified—
  5. swallowed, blinked, flinched.
  6. So what is black and white,
  7. and what is gray? Pigs
  8. are raised without sun or wind,
  9. except on the way to slaughter.
  10. There was a pig’s brain
  11. removed from the stall of its skull
  12. and bathed in a concoction
  13. of warm and artificial blood.
  14. Thirty-six hours they kept it
  15. from death. That’s a start.
  16. Dog to pig to whom? And what
  17. is the life span of pity?
  18. In English we call, thoughtless,
  19. the worst among us pigs.

Editor’s Note:

Murrey commented about this poem: “[Recently] I saw an article on the BBC describing how scientists at MIT were able to keep the brains of pigs alive using a system of pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood.”

Ethics debate as pig brains kept alive without a body

© Matthew Murrey. Rattle. “Poets Respond” on May 6, 2018.

About the Poet:

Matthew Murrey, United States, (contemporary) is a poet, counselor and public school librarian. Murrey has published in many journals including: Tar River Poetry, Poetry East, and The Progressive. He also received an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and his first book manuscript, Bulletproof was published by Jacar Press in February 2019, after being selected by Marilyn Nelson as the winner of Jacar’s 2018 Full-Length Book Contest. [DES-11/19]

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