Boatyard/Graveyard
Shanghai, China
2022, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
What We have all seen, and take pride in seeing:
I. The lusterless shells distorted into ugly
shapes, bulging pale flesh bound in ghostly
chains, gossamer strands that grip &
Strangle—we are fascinated by the
turtles entangled in Plastic.
II. The mercury on our plate, in the form of ten-dollar tuna:
“This accumulation of heavy metals,
often found in shellfish & predatory fish, is Toxic
to the human body,” we recite,
and feel pleased at our knowledge.
III. The multimedia collage floating atop an abyss
drained of aquamarine, glistening petroleum like obsidian
—parasitic ink
creeping beneath a kaleidoscope of fragments…
Gazprom gleams. Glass glitters. Gulls glut
themselves on the watery wasteland.
IV. The growing numbers our eyes flit past, digits sinking soundlessly
back into the roaring, swirling Tsunami of
information-headlines-blatant-lies we would rather be
swallowed by. A Loch Ness monster, maybe,
that we would rather not believe.
What We don’t see, or do not want to see—
I. The faded wet litmus paper, oozing pus-yellow at the mere touch
of Water—in a few centuries’ time, it will be
bleeding Red into the sea. We will ignore
the cracked conches, shriveling corpses of
soft bivalves, littered across a desert of bone.
II. The bleached skulls of coral reefs killed. Phantoms—
of the vibrant vessels once pulsating with passengers, now
specters that stand, still & silent. Soulless.
Only experts lament such casualties, the reefs
devoured by anemia, baked to death in the heat. Who else mourns?
III. The deep, gaping scars left by careless hands, mechanical
Monsters—trawling trenches, scraping every inch of skin
from the ocean floor. Scrutinizing her naked frame,
digging between the bony ridges
of bare ribs, we seek to scavenge every last Offering.
IV. The children of Minamata who twist & moan in both sleep &
waking, writhing their bodies as if to struggle free
from a giant net. (Trapped) in a mesh of our making—
their chemical-fueled
Dreams never cease to remind them.
Reflection
Reflection
A seemingly insurmountable gap in information is what I try to reconcile in this poem. Specifically, I aim to address the asymmetry between what we see pictured in mass media but are unmoved by and the tragedies we remain willfully ignorant of. I wanted to express the gravity of our oceans’ gradual decline innovatively, piquing interest without losing purpose. By satirizing our obsession with morbid aspects of the sea’s afflictions and juxtaposing this with lesser-known but equally pressing issues such as ocean acidification and coral bleaching, I try to highlight the disastrous and soon-tangible consequences of our indifference. The capitalization of certain words is an attempted mimicry of the loud, glib, and irrelevant headlines that ironically catch our attention, deflecting much-needed awareness from the environmental issues we face.