“Net Seas”

[sral]

“Between you and me,” the fish begins gasping
“This here used to be a spot swimming with talent,”
The glint in his nacreous pearls fades from the eyes
into stygian blackness at the changing of tides.
“New waves would arrive, but old schools wouldn’t adapt,”
The grey he now glides through hid its colourful past.
A lusciously lavish lime-green grows festered with fauna
as young whippersnappers seek less treacherous waters.
The septic old stalwarts are stuck in their ways
full of selfish importance and reluctant to change.
They love to inflate their worth to excess in verbatim
too stubborn to make way for the next generation.
Those set in their ways want to keep what they have
- with the rest relegated to feed off their scraps.
The green-gilled that gather can’t afford to be different
so they eat up the chance of each morsel they’re given.
There’s a war of attrition bubbling already amidst them
as it’s poor eco-system brings the threat of extinction.
The real enemy isn’t sharing space in the pond
- but in letting its visitors stagnate for too long.
When the greyfish are gone, I’ll carry this place on my back
despite my aging accomplishments or the weight of the task.
But it takes a collaborative effort for our scene to survive
and we must sustain what we have to help us keep it alive.
I’m breathing new life into it, whether as big as some think
or a meaningless fry, but either way - I’m still just a fish.
You sink or you swim, the size of the pond our sort inhibit
is insignificant, it’s little fish that make all the difference.