Arches of Blood by Killer Whales

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

https://iere.org/what-animal-eats-fur-seals/

How complicated can a whale’s mind beat

If it is made of kill, kill, kill, not love

At all (except the love of blood of meat

(Though fishy flavor) or that thrown above

While chomping child-like seals?  Do spiral nerves

Seek prey or are the ganglias’ straight lines

For slaughter?  Spiralling and killing swerves

Are what the baby seal in death aligns

With.  Mathematics can adduce arced waves

And bends, parabolas, of sweeps of death

Of babies being flung to salty water graves,

Of babies wishing they could scream for breath.

  No spiralled whale anatomy of brain

    Requires internal grace for sea’s red stain.

©  Phillip Whidden