From All-Creatures.org

Animal Rights Poetry and Prose By Heidi Coon

Poems of compassion dedicated to the non-human animals who share this planet with us and the people who fight for them.

Death or Prison
By Heidi Coon

Taiji
Killing cove
Ground zero

A nature made funnel
Into the gates of hell

The rocky spurs-
they blur
Sounds
Drowns
Compounds
The islets-
They circumvent
Don’t relent
The shallows-
Underwater gallows
That lay in wait
As the boats prowl

Dolphin pod
Just under the surface
Making their migratory way
Through the sea
Carefree
A family
Spanning generations
Cetacean congregation
Filled with elders
The teachers. The helpers.
Pregnant females
& all that entails.
Adolescents
Still learning lessons.
And, the dolphin calves
[like human babies]
Being taught skills
To fend for themselves.

Click
Pop
Whistle
Familial bond abyssal

Young being taught
Fish catching techniques
Seabirds an afterthought
Circling above
Following the group
DOWN they swoop
For an easy meal.

Unknowingly-
The flying opportunists
Gave a raw deal

Cos the hunters now know
…where to go.

Seabirds alerting assassins
To a trove of dolphins.

Banger boats

Hammers on flange
Poles broadcasting
A sound so strange
A sound blasting
& lasting

In an instant
The happy family sharing fish
Their clicks & whistles
Replaced with panicked screams

BOOMS flood their sonar
They see a wall of sound
DRIVE HUNT
Clanging
Difficult to negotiate
Impossible to navigate
Seemingly no escape
From the terrible sound

Desperate dolphins
Flopping
Endorphins
Popping
[killers don’t care-this is profit talking]

Underwater
BANG
Metal on metal
CLANG
Unfamiliar menace
Pursuing as they race
With no escape
Thunderous BOOMS
That torment
Their intent
To disorient
DRIVE HUNT

High frequency clicks
Sound waves
Travel quick
Through the blue
Echolocation
Askew
The wall of sound
Awful & all around
A once dulcet home beneath the surface
Now
Deafening
Disorienting
Deceiving
The languid pod
Flees the threat
Into the cove
Trapped with nets. 

Go on to: Despise
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