Coral's Last Dance

I have shimmied into a sea changed

dress of shimmering strange corals,

To dance for you, you old harlot Life.

I’ll glisten with the glitter of polyp jewels 

On the voluptuous open beds of the sea,

And chorus this teeming ocean’s opera.

With my manta ray charisma's of betrayal,

in dark wing sweeps of villainous robes,

I keep secret couplings, veiled spawnings;

with my octo~poidal sway of sly seductions

I swirl and flow, coral in bordello-skirt folds,

of whore-holy caves, mouths open, chambered to...

O, where, with clutching hands, passion’s wave

rings in the coming, all the colours of delight,

to orgasm through eggy re-imaginings

of you, Life, and all of your marine bodies 

arching in my cathedral, robed with desire.

Now these dancing days are lost and gone,

you’ve civilised me in bleachings of bone. 

Concrete now, my white-skirt stone sterility,

stripped down barren. My cavorting fertility

In well-ordered vaults where no sea life stirs.

Only ocean’s ghost, a lifeless god ‘Progress’

kneels in silent prayer to profit and perfection

for the sea-rape of resources that you began.

Where are my bad old days, wild and pagan,

Do you think we can let them come again?

Notes:

Coral Reefs were once vibrantly coloured and teeming with life, but many are now bleached and barren, thanks to a condition called coral bleaching. These bleached reefs stand like skeletons along the world's coastlines.

Scientists believe as much as 25% of marine life depends on the continued health of coral reefs.

Bleaching is caused by a one or two percent rise in ocean temperature. Therefore it is an environmental indicator of starving animals, a failing ocean ecosystem and a devastating change in global climate. 

Coral reefs can be thought as the rain-forests of the sea. The loss of coral reef eco-systems is as devastating as de-forestation on the land. Experts predict that are current rates of loss all coral reefs will be destroyed in the coming century