From All-Creatures.org

Animal Rights Poetry By Noël Sweeney

We Can See the Sea

The whale is already fetid
Her tail as rancid and stale
As a politician's promise to be honest
As the impossible is hard to achieve
Once we had a reason to believe
Now somehow fading away we see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

The shark has lost his fins
His tail as rancid and stale
As a predator's promise to shed malice
For a future only a seer could foresee
The daytime darkness raises a plea
Forcing us to realise but still see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

Seals have shed their mottled skin
As if they were pleading volunteers
Neither seeking to resist or prohibit
Ocean research by a Japanese scientist
When anyone asks about anything
Of anyone any time of day you see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

The alligator has snapped his chain
Hose-washed blood erased his name
Along with our memory and his pain
As the claim for a stylish handbag
Is our sole promise that now remain
A search-party sold his life we see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

The crocodile has lost her smile
Drowned in her own forced tears
A blunt knife pierces her wary eye
Seasick sailors search for a lullaby
When she lost her life in sheer fear
Her body pulled by the boat you see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

Dolphin numbers have shrunk
Most lost in a sky blue funk
The scale of the tale they can tell
A stench of a rigour mortis smell
Time for us and them is long gone
Reflecting on our passing we see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

Lobsters changed from pink to black
After a maven armed Spanish attack
Halted breath with limbs idly hacked
The sailors played on any living prey
Passing time towards a judgement day
So there was no way back you see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

Oysters lost their survival shell
When they were all pulverised
By forces from a man-made hell
No rocking at the base of the sea
They grew respected and protected
Until we stole their home you see
While more cling to a sweet ideal
The left and right day and night
Will be alright
As long as we can see the sea

All we can see is the bed of the sea
A rust-riddled floor barely visible
A bed stripped bare yet indivisible

No water now no water anywhere
Salt has turned brooding and dark
The seal has somehow lost her bark
A stark mark hidden from you and me
Blind as we are to our guiding star
For what we see is what we cannot see
We are what we figured we would never be
The land has lost her last torched tree
The sky cries her sad secret silence
For the last uncaged blue-bird
For the free lonely spoiled sea
Kissed by the lonesome land
Reaching out for any true hand
From the sparked lightning stars
Locked behind our human bars
While all the waters burn
Frames our failure to learn
A lesson lifeline of our lifetime
As the last dolphin sighs then dies
Before her intended rightful time

A drooped head of a dying swan
Found a bed she never wanted
Seeped in pools of spreading red
A sleep of the long-time dead
Yet the cataracts of our poison
Tethered to the end of our rope
We face figures we cannot see
Even with a magnified telescope
Less than abandon a sweet ideal
There is a loss of our hope you see
The left and right day and night
Will never be alright
It is not in our sight
For now it can never be

We only listen to self-serving alibis
As a shuttered camera snaps our lies
Willing to be blinded by blurred eyes
We have no need of a clairvoyant
When we can still be nonchalant
Our future forged on a sour spree
A fog-brained present for you and me
We see a fogged future for you and me
The periscope’s view is now destroyed
Without any dressed-up excuse or ploy
There is no reason we can be buoyed
Now we can no longer see the sea

© Noel Sweeney, 2023

 

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