Paul Willason Poet Free verse

Small Life

There are killings,
suffocation in gullet
hell holes, decapitations 
by mandibles stalking in shadows,
death pits at the bottom
of slippery throated flowers
and racked on a web,
a struggling moth
slowly turning into soup.

My garden is a slaughter
field littered with the leftovers
from deadly feasts. 
And the victims….what 
of their inaudible cries, 
the screams broadcast 
on wavelengths beyond
my ear. Do they plead
for mercy, feel pain 
register in whatever 
rudimentary brain animates 
their brief lives.

Help me ! Please help me !
does the moth cry,
feeling the spiders fangs
penetrate and pump poison
into its trussed body.
Or do I give such
small life undue significance
affording it compassion
when it should be exempt.
But where's the line ?
Size ? 
Its propensity for domestication,
its rank on an arbitrary scale ?

The perfumed beauty
of a single flower diverts
the senses and disconnects 
attention to the suffering
of small things.
We are blissfully unaware.
Does anyone hear them,
does anyone care,
or does life's little screams
fall into an uncaring nothingness
and if so, then what of our own.

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Daniel Turner November 21, 2023 at 12:02 PM I get your point, Paul. I'll second Lin's remark. I will also add a line from a movie which I think is the mentality of it all. "If God had not meant them to be sheared, He would not have made them sheep" The strong over the weak. Paul Willason November 27, 2023 at 4:01 AM Many thanks Daniel for your comments...makes sense of course although how savage the game rules are. O well... Take care my friend, Paul

Lin Lane November 18, 2023 at 7:10 AM There's significance to all life, Paul. I know you're aware or you would not have created the thoughts you've exposed in this poem. "Survival of the fittest" is the law of nature but that doesn't mean we don't cringe when a life of even the lowliest tiny creature becomes a meal of survival for another. Catching a lizard in my home and releasing it is a compassionate thing to do, but I'd draw the line at a roach. Thank goodness I don't have them! Paul Willason November 27, 2023 at 3:55 AM Like you, roaches would have a hard time convincing me of their worthiness. As a self aware species, suffering is always a troubling subject when married to evolutionary survival...however the ability to feel and practice compassion is a unique part of our humanity I guess. Thanks Lin for your thoughtful comments. Paul