Punishment Enough Anthology
The Woodlands, TX
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
“Immortal Impurity”
Bioaccumulation is the supremely beautiful word
For the savagely sinister buildup of poisons within organisms,
With the large predators
Accumulating more and more
Poisons from their prey’s toxic flesh.
Words are full of beauty
But beauty is dependent on meaning
And though its sound is rather pleasing
Poison remains a fatal sentence
And so it shall remain.
Bitterly pouting as they read about
The dangers of eating tuna or shark or swordfish
They shake their heads in exasperation
Missing the fantastic irony of their own reflection in the window
Pondering the causes of this travesty.
“Going Out the Roman Way”
Once upon a time
There lived a tuna that’d rhyme.
He ate many little fish
As his dinner’s main dish.
As the days went by
He noticed with a sigh
That his vision was bad
And his swimming was sad.
He swam with a shrug
And though it was simply a bug.
But one very sad day
His life had wasted away.
“Bliss is Not Happiness”
Bliss
free, sheltered
blinding, hiding, disguising
a term for freedom from reality
Ignorance
Bliss
without pollution, without worries
no dying, no poisoning, no accumulating
a world without toxified flesh
Fantasy
“Sickening Sonnet”
While we all are rather guilty of this
As we all see the world as our stage
We seem to grievously miss
That if life were a book we are but a page.
Most will certainly want to defend
That they are not thinking selfishly
They seem to miss that in the end
We treat the water rather slavishly.
Yet we dump our poisons and pesticides
Into the life giving depths of blue
Shrugging our shoulders and saying “Besides,
There’s no way the ocean can sue”.
So open your eyes and clear your ears
And try to alleviate the ocean’s real fears.
“Single Word Answers”
Why is it that people neglect to take action until they are affected?
Why must it take that much to motivate people to act?
We knew that we poisoned the oceans and we knew that it hurt the animals.
Yet we shrugged and neglected the problem until quite recently.
Only now that one should not consume tuna or swordfish do we care.
Only now do our habits worry us and only now do we hope to dull their effects.
Only now do we feel guilt for the sins we have committed.
“Meanwhile”
We dump toxins into the water
We pour impurities down the drain
We transform water into pesticide packed runoff
And we do this without a second thought.
Meanwhile
Herring, mackerel, and other little fish swim
And they feed, as all animals do
Inevitably ingesting our refuse
And they do this without a second thought.
Meanwhile
Tuna, swordfish, dolphins, and whales swim along
Eating their prey as all animals do
Ingesting the toxins within their little prey
And they do this without a second thought.
Meanwhile
Within the animals, big and small, toxins build up
With the big ones suffering the most
And the toxins compound just like unfinished work
And this is done without a second thought.
Meanwhile
The poisons do what poisons do
And they do this not only to the suffering sea life
But to their predators as well
So give a second thought to the toxic plight of these animals and their home.
Reflection
Poetry is perhaps the most emotional form of literary expression, so I felt that I could express my feelings about human involvement in ocean pollution (namely the bioaccumulation of chemicals) the most clearly here. I decided on writing a collection because I feel that the best way to express the many facets of this problem in even a semi-complete way would be to write numerous poems describing different aspects of this issue. Now, why bioaccumulation and biomagnification? Well, I have always found this result of pollution involving pesticides and other chemicals to be one of the most overlooked. Nobody seemed to care about it, that is, until numerous reports of how dangerous it was to eat fish in some areas, like the Gulf of Mexico, came out. One thing that deeply irritates me - no, angers me - is when people only care about something when it affects them. I hated that numerous people started to become concerned with their own health and lament that they could no longer eat the fish that they wanted, but many never tried to take any steps to stop the causes of this (one of the biggest being the pesticides and industrial chemicals in runoff) nor did they feel nearly as concerned for the environment and the health of their fellow organisms. So, I felt deeply emotional about this, therefore I decided that even though I am passionate about many areas of conservation, this area would be the most powerful due to the lack of concern.