LEFTY PATTED A SHARK IN A FEEDING FRENZY



It was back about '97 or thereabouts
That the news came across the TV,
We should all head down to Williamstown
Because there was such a sight to see.

A dead Southern Right Whale had floated in
And was a few hundred metres from the shore,
And around the whale perhaps a hundred sharks
Tearing at the whale with snapping jaws.

The tourist traps ... er, tourist boats
Were real quickly in on the act,
They ferried the gullible tourists out
Within centimetres of the jaws that snapped.

Ol' Lefty reached his right hand out
And patted a Great White as it fed,
With jaws that snapped, and tore and gnashed
Upon a carcase already dead.

For days the feeding frenzy went on
And the gullible tourists went out in boats,
To pat and stroke the frenzied monsters
Who spasmed in anger at every stroke.

Belatedly the government stepped in
And made the tourist traps ... er, boats stop,
Afraid of the damage to the tourist trade
If too many tourists hand limbs snapped off.

The whole whale carcase was devoured,
In a single week or maybe slightly more,
By a hundred feeding, frenzied sharks
Just a few hundred metres from shore.

THE END
© Copyright 2021, Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

In the late 1990s a dead whale washed up near a Melbourne beach; tourist boats started taking people out to lean over the edge and pat sharks feeding

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Written on 1998

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on August 22, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:03 min read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA BCDX EFGX GHFH XEXX BXXX XCDC XXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,155
Words 210
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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