#fishermen
Silhouettes of birds
following the fishermen:
a killer squadron.
May 5
May 5, 2026 at 4:00 AM UTC
~
Hand and needle,
weapons of mass protection.
Mending day called solace,
bitterness in every stitch.
When all guides disappear
the hand begins to tremble,
that is the material point.
Listen to the water,
the sea is full of memories.
It knows everything,
it feels nothing.
A rage is building.
The sails unfurl,
the wind follows.
A hundred years of
traversing the deep
on a ship full of opiates
and other distant mermaids.
This blood vessel,
cresting the heart of the wave,
you will never completely cross
this body of water
until you learn to trust
the hands that hold back
death and it's squall.
Even now they drop anchor, singing
into the starry sky:
*"Gather ye fishermen's wives
As thy men roll out to sea
Pray one and all
Thy sails hold strong this day..."*
~
Dec 26, 2024
Dec 26, 2024 at 4:33 PM UTC
Will you wait for us,
Scandies Rose ?
to always be your fishermen
for eternity,
the sea with her high swells
has our bodies in her
tidal *****
our wives in maritime loss,
you were my love, my vessel,
and you went down with us
into January's cold, cold deep,
our five souls God's to keep.
May 28, 2020
May 28, 2020 at 9:35 AM UTC
Justice, when will you seek this land?
Infuriated and filled with rage and flame.
Nation, do you demand?
Neglecting our own and true name.
Education, how will we stand?
Aggravated with ignorance and fame.
And when must our country be at our hand?
Justice, you shall always acclaim.
Oath taken by people whom hands are to blame
Stripped and deprived of our own sea and sand.
Eager, I am, to save our crown land.
Jul 7, 2019
Jul 7, 2019 at 7:02 AM UTC
'Twas all so beautiful a sight,
A long summers night; The sacred stars were burning bright about our mother moon.
The wind filled the sails above the waves, that sped us through the sailors tales, and brought us to a deep lagoon.
We cast our nets out far and wide, then watched them sink below the tide, which rattled out a tune for me and you.
We hauled aboard the silver fish, to fill our bellies and our fists, then set off home with seagulls squawking tunes.
The wooden boat now tied about the quay,
its tattered sail and rusty cleat,
gently tug and tug the rope upon the swell.
come to sea!
You know me well!!
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 8:23 AM UTC
The fishing nets are fine,
fine and well mended.
Jose helps to haul them
aboard with his young
strong hands.
The catch seems good
as if Christ Himself
had been on-board.
The sun is low
in the sky,
seems to sit
on the sea.
Fishes flap and turn
on the deck of the boat
after we haul them in.
It has been an arduous trip:
one man down, off sick.
Jose, bent down
his strong mucluar arms
performing their task,
seems content.
Back home his wife
awaits him, no doubt
with troubled brow,
her brother drowned
on a fishing trip
a few years before
out here in this wide expanse
where the fishes swim
and the sunbeams dance.
It is done;
the catch is sorted
and pack away.
We head for port,
our load complete.
We light up cigarettes
and smoke.
He quiet
stares at the sea;
I repeat
well worn jokes.
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 4:52 AM UTC
A beach,
early dawn,
fishingmen
preparing their boat,
nets arranged,
sea welcoming,
tides rushing,
sunlight smimming
into view,
and you,
one of them
thinks about,
how he left you sleeping,
tucked up in bed,
how he kissed your head,
they push out
the boat together
until the sea bears it up
and they clamber aboard,
away from the shore,
preparing themselves
for action,
and he remembers
the night before,
making love,
kissing each aspect of you,
your lips on his
over and over,
looking back,
seeing the White Cliffs of Dover.
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 2:34 AM UTC
It was the strangest of days,
That turned into the coldest of nights.
I lay there waiting for the Fisherman's return.
A promise of his blessing,
Before I headed out to warmer waters,
Until Summer was to return.
The red wine was now half empty,
The candles wax-ridden and burned.
The current shifted, it was time to return.
A fair maiden in a tavern,
Wrapped around the Fisherman's arms.
He gave her tokens she would treasure
I gave him curses of scorn.
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 4:41 PM UTC
Beneath the water lived a nymph, beautiful as
A flower, if you like woman with petals
Growing from out of their face
And lips adorned with myriad metals
Moving silently with infinite grace.
Fishermen who caught her, in alarm
Tossed her back with dismayed cries
Fearful that she would do them harm
When she exposed her fangs, darting from her eyes,
Forked tongues from each palm.
But apart from all that, she was a delightful creature
As proud as a catwalk model
Sexuality impressed into each feature
Death in each cuddle,
Poison injected from each freshly opening suture.
At the sea’s dark bottom lived the nymph
Devouring fish raw, terrifying sharks and barracuda,
Dining on shellfish and prawns for lunch;
Darting amongst Angel Fish and eels, a hungry aficionada,
Tearing into shreds what she could not crunch.
Gentle with her own kind until coition
Was complete, when if hungry she devoured
Her temporary mate without undue consideration,
No please or thank you. Feeling duly empowered
By her actions, as confirmed by her explosive, acrid indigestion.
No longer young, her children dead,
She glides through the water from China to France
A preposterous seaweed hat upon her head
And in several places, impaling her scaly flesh a serrated coral branch.
Her sartorial taste filling even the sharks with fin-quaking dread.
The last of the kind. The others are (literally) toast.
Protected by animal charities here and abroad
She gladly subsists on ambitious swimmers who venture far from the coast
All she can now catch or afford.
A capricious tyrant until the last, when, victim of a fisherman’s boast
She was hoist up like iniquitous cod
Out of the sea, paraded on the deck while she struggled for breath.
Shot at. Abused. Poked and speared with a steel tipped rod,
Dragged into the harbour, pummelled close to death.
Screaming out, as she in unexpected agony died: “I thought, I truly thought, I was god!”
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 2:06 PM UTC
I throw my gubbins out
in my net, casting for a
dinner to feed you
by spoon.
My words are gubbins.
Irritating impulse of
fingers and joints
bending around your waist.
Our speech is gubbins -
puked through esophagus
bile and awkward conversation.
A belch of early caught perch.
We make love like gubbins.
You flop wrongly, I flip coarsely.
Our toes knot and break.
We kiss backwards.
I cry gubbins
on your sweaty shirt.
Your gubbin caught dinner
still smudged on your cheek.
I wake up to your bucket of
gubbins from dinner next to the bed.
I bring it to my boat
to catch our next meal.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC
Tall round beams standing
in salty water, connecting
fishermen and star-fish gazers
with a moon-shaped bay
on the eastern Pacific.
They stand on land and step into sea,
as rolling barrels from Arctic grounds
tickle their lower legs.
A centipede of wood, this
outward- jutting wharf.
The fishermen sink expectant hooks;
the surfers haul shiny glass
banana-shaped boards of foam;
the weekenders come posing
baby strollers for picture shooting.
Each passing wall of blue
energy slows at reach of
shallow sand, deciding
whether to keep rolling or
transform into a steep stack
of snapping water. On big days
the sea legs shake all the
fishermen. They lock away
their sacrificial bait in rusty boxes
and collapse their fibered rods.
On calm days I step out to a
wooden bench and hang my
face between the rails. Running
people pass below, between the
knotted hips and creosoted thighs.
August buries this preserve
in such drizzle. Gulls go bundling
inside their sleek robes
of white feather, leaning
windward on worn bent knees.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 10:30 PM UTC