crimson sky collapsed
in trance ~
distant shore swooning —
dissolved baleen …crescent moon landed
in sunset s p l e e n ~
narrowing focus to locus ______
____________________________________
Bronze Winner: Shortform Poetry
Prompt : crimson haze
Allpoetry. com : May 26
Minke whales, surface and dive
massive baleen lined mouths filter out food
our boat keeps its distance
a whale's baleen
hundreds seen ... mash
marine cuisine
Unhinge your jaw, snake, what’s a little more?
You’re eating worlds faster than they make them
And nothing fills you better than a tale of love and war.
You’re ravenous, really, making feasts out of beasts.
You’re every monster’s monster and your hunger never dies
As your shadow stretches over bones you’ve bleached.
Jormungand’s ribs poke like toothpicks in your teeth,
Tying twine ‘round your molars ‘til gaps and the string
Melt to baleen and bone, fangs unused and unseen.
You sift through the dead and your previous meals
Searching for something to take off the edge
Of the wound in your skull that never quite heals.
Come on, snake, devour, it’s all you can do—
You cannibalize the length of your life
When you’ve run out of ways to avoid the truth.
You see thousands of times but won’t open your eyes
‘Cause real life constricts but in mirrors you’re free,
And your hunger hurts no one when you’re eating lies.
Third-person you swallow your tail without help.
The snake, ouroboros, that endless decay;
You’ve consumed every lie and are left with yourself
And you realize too late you ate your whole life away.
Last night, I rode upon a sea of dreams,
a whale and grandpa rode them with me.
I felt water hit me as I sailed in my bed;
it was only the whale nodding his head.
He splashed all around those waters of blue,
while rays of moonlight cast silvery hues.
The fish, how they danced in and out of the waves;
a Salmon leapt by me, a Tuna, a Blue Hake.
My bed, it sailed better than any old boat;
when the dream began I was trapped in a moat!
As it turned into ocean with waters blue-green,
I realized the whale, it was a Baleen.
The whale, he told me that he was endangered,
why should he confide in me, a stranger?
My Grandpa told me the very next day,
when I grew up, the whales I could help save.
Fin Whales are listed as, endangered
and are the second largest animal, on our planet
they swim in, California, Coral Triangle and Artic waters
and the ridge on their back, is nicknamed “razorback”
They have an unusual feature, as their lower left jaw
is just black, and lower right jaw, is bright white
They circle schools of fish, with their white side facing
to densify their prey, for an easy catch of fish
Commercial whaling, has killed hundreds of thousands
for oil, meat and baleen, to feed greedy humans
Iceland needs to end, their commercial annihilation
and we all need to end, climate change and pollution
Blue Whale is an internet game involving a series of
tasks that end in suicide, invented by Philipp Budeikin.
Blue Whale
It appears
in Budeikin’s brain.
Its baleen plates will filter
the worthless krill from society,
he envisages.
Swimming alone,
it catches teens.
It challenges Varun
in the ocean of dejection.
He takes on the tasks:
listens
to the lunatic music,
climbs
on a crane,
engraves
a red whale
on his arm
with a pair of compasses…
On the fiftieth day,
he undertakes
the last task
and falls into death
from the top of his broken psyche.
Baffling the whalers,
the blue whale swims
with its mouth open.
First published in The Literary Hatchet (Pear Tree Press, US)
Wending her way westward, wafted on whispering wings
Sailing serenely southward, slithering past secluded scenes
Nudging northward, noticing narrow, noctilucent moonbeams
Edging effortlessly eastward, entering ecstasy's eerie baleen...
Grace dillied and dallied, then dithered and doodled and dozed
Could Heaven's Handiwork save her? ~ Neither angels nor seraphs know
MISTER BALEEN
limerick
Mister Baleen got a whalebone
He went to a charmer Doctor scone
Doctor went to granny
She was very funny
Put bone on griddle to make a clone
© Rajat Kanti Chakrabarty December 2014
Deep blue sea mammals
Cetaceans so grand
Its hard to believe
They originated on land
Dolphins, porpoises
Our many Whales
What ever size
Beautiful in sail
Toothed and baleen
Identifies them
Plankton feeders
Echolocation gems
To stop the hunting
It's a must
Protect the whales
In us they trust
To have a world
Where the whales have gone
All other species will think
It won't be long
" This poem is for Karen O' Leary and all other whale lovers "
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