Out from your box
One piled snuggling
Next to the other
You look out at me
Big brown-black eyes
Inform me that
You are still alive
But there is no noise
Of croaking coming
From you, nor do you
Try and hop out
And I don’t understand
Why you have given up
The fight for freedom
The box says on it
Intermediate sized frogs
But there is no price
On your head while
you sit there
Staring out at me, one
Looking just as the other
Why are you not struggling
To get out the sides
It is not that high
An image of lobsters
Walking on the waters
Floors, amongst the rubble,
Comes to me
And I remember the
High shrill sound
Dropping them
In boiling water
They say if you put frogs
In a pot of water and slowly
Raise the temperature
They will be lulled to sleep
And die, but turn the flame
Quickly and they will
Fight to survive
I see you all sitting there
And I am in awe
What part of you
Has been shut down
That you don’t escape
And I am reminded
Of people herded off
In cattle cars
Their emaciated and thin
Bones showing their
Entire skeleton, still
They struggle to breath
Above the stenches
And with all human rights
Violated and betrayed,
They struggle to survive
Until the smoke rises
From the chimneys
Those frogs have haunted me since I saw them there. Few people in the store speak English and I cannot ask them where the frogs come from or why they don’t try to escape or how they eat them, and if they kill them first. Even if there was, and there sometimes is, someone who spoke good enough English to ask, I cannot bring myself to ask the questions.
I think about becoming a vegetarian, but it doesn’t even last till I get out of the store, besides now we are dealing with Monsanto produce on top of everything. I think about people all over the world who were herded together or lumped together in a box. The eyes of the frogs staring out at me remind me of the advertisements of starving children from Biafra and the like. It has been weeks now, and I could just write that poem now. It has been weeks now, and their eyes still stare out at me. I am trying to hear what they are saying.
Truly amazing. I love using metaphors to great poems, can really result in people thinking really hard in what they’re reading. X
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Thank you!
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