Humans lure me, trap and hook me
For food, pleasure or game
“Fishing” is the given name
My fluttering protests snubbed
My piercing bones affronted
Into pails I am flung
For later, for fate to be slung
Never postponed, for my body limp
Gasping for air, none for my gills
Hooks and lines now obsolete
Trawling us, for coffers ne’er replete
Death ever so slow, in-nuanced
Ghastly choking amid abundance
Air, air everywhere
And not a whiff to respire
Marine mates consume me
For food, never sport nor game
Whose nourishment I supply
Their survival, my demise
Eggs I lay by the thousands
Sacred life’s cycles to continue, undeterred, fecund
Dancing around our mate
Without need to fornicate
Life on the outside to procreate
While inside, of rape to obviate
Humans lure, hook and each other murder
Never for sport, food, game nor leisure
Since their arrival, killing tools ever deadlier
Victims grieving, for departed ones
Mad, enraged but powerless at guilty ones
Slaughter often massive in scale
Habitually genocidal, as survivors wail
All for god or dogma, tribe or oil
Abundant prep with untold toil
At any price must come the spoils
Never executed as going “humaning”
Murderous excursions ever expanding
Toxic fumes perpetually dispersing
Peace or harmony barely lasting
History repeated, always recurring
Life’s end now assuredly looming
We preceded by millions of eons these Homo sapiens
Evolving away from, not with us, bizarre aliens
Ever since, the planet’s never the same
Still, our dancing, ovulating proceed just the same
In refuges deep under with safe lanes
Even against odds stacked by colossal fishing
‘Tis the “humaning” that’ll be the planet’s undoing
And when we are gone…so too will be fishing
Fishing no more, impending end of “humaning”
©Alwi Shatry, All Rights Reserved
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Author:
Seek (
Offline) - Published: July 2nd, 2017 10:14
- Comment from author about the poem: Human attitudes, especially those seduced by unbridled power constitute a real danger to Mother Nature, as the fish narrating this poem shows.
- Category: Nature
- Views: 34
Offline)
Comments2
Wonderful assessment of the fleeting nature of humanity in the scheme of things, and the impact we have on our host planet. Good poem, Seek! Welcome to MPS.
Thank you Louis. I feel at home already.
We need poems like yours to remind ourselves to change our ways. Great writing, thank you!
Very generous remarks, Fred. I am flattered. Improving on my first poem will now become a real challenge. Judging from the truly great reception here.
Don't worry Seek, just go with what comes naturally and just assume that if you are happy with it everybody else will be happy too. This is not a contest. We just write, share it, and enjoy reading everybody else's work.
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