Bottom Up

Whenever I write anything, I like being the character. Case in point here; the poem is told from the POV of a hungry shark watching a diver...

 

 

Sunrays

Spill through,

Rippling down

Going through skin and scale

Vanishing as they reach the bottom of the sea.

 

The bottom,

Where predators lurk

Around every corner

Waiting for the right moment

The right time

To snatch

An early morning snack.

 

It’s my turn now,

And as I lurk

Amongst

The seaweed,

Billowing up

Sand as I pass through

And I realize

How hungry I am.

 

I see him,

The prey,

The snack,

The thing that tastes so good…

The very thing that I told myself would be worth waking up for today.

 

Schools of fish parade around him

Circle him

Embrace him

Squirming away if he gets too close.

 

He kicks upward now,

The fish darting away,

Flying away

To families

Torn apart,

For I have killed their young.

 

I can’t let him get away,

Can I?

 

Should I?

 

Well my stomach argues no--

And the baby in my womb argues no.

 

The call

Of Mother Nature

Is a strong one,

But the call of the womb

Is an even

Stronger one,

Over-riding

Even the strongest of

Natural instincts.

 

So I turn upward,

Continuously moving,

Eyes widening,

Teeth grinning,

Hungry.

 

As I make my mad dash to the surface

And food,

The sun,

Ever so bright,

Widens

And embraces me.

 

With the fish in the area gone,

He finally senses me,

Senses the danger

He’s in.

 

Now his eyes

Are wide,

Filled with blind panic

That I can see

Even through the lenses’ of

His goggles.

 

Propelling now,

I flash him a smile

As his

Right diving flipper

Smacks me across the face.

 

Ow.

 

Oxygen bubbles momentarily blind me,

But I’m mad now,

Enraged,

Ready to put up a fight

For my young one,

For my future.

 

When everything clears

And I can see the sunrays again,

He’s gone.

 

A creature from the surface,

A stranger to our lands,

Just a breakfast to me.

 

But

Then

I

Realize:

He wasn’t alone.

 

Like the schools of fish,

I see he has brought a wealth

Of kin,

All staring at

Me with big, frightened eyes.

 

And what kind of person would I be if I didn’t give them a nice welcome?

Author's Note

While it's style may be close to my other poem, SNOW FLURRIES, I tried to get deeper into character with this one, and make the scenario more detailed. Did I succeed? (Also the picture that goes with the poem is the inspiration for it)
UPDATE: The newer version is a little more detailed, making the poem's twist clearer.

Reviews

[HorrorMaster]

I love your style. It's very good. Very well written.

[spence]

I didn't see the pic to go with this, but I guessed the prey was of human variety! I have little sympathy- humans are/have become the most vicious and dangerous predator on the planet so it's actually quite liberating to see us portrayed with such vulnerability. This is a subjective perspective on my part, but I saw our abundance as ironically contrasted against the diminishing populations of sea life in this write.
I did see the similarities in style to snow flurries, but as I really liked that approach I think this works too- (it may be a good template for a serial of 'first person' works?). On a critical note- I sometimes found the shark to have too much of a human-like perception, but this did work well as a plausible comparison to the callousness of our nature in relation to our prey. Good work again, take care, spence

[brownie]

actually, the POV switches around a little. Basically, it's a shark hunting an unaware diver. The diver gets away...but then the shark realizes that the diver brought friends with him too--and mister shark is still hungry...

[Ian]

yes you did, at first i thought you was the predator but you were talking about the predator stalking the prey and made it interesting when the hunger grew just waiting for the fish. You made me feel like i was really there good great job.