"fished" poems
I fished a movie
hoping to cast a reel
that catches a keeper
hook, line, and sinker
I waded in line
smiling
the tackle box optimism in my sights
butterfly's in my net
visions of a hotrod
I look up at the marque
with a good cast and reel
my boats singing
a song that's hooked on love
I enter the theatre
among the trees
branching towards my spot
such forestry
I race past the mainstream
hotrod in tow
I take to my seat
setting anchor to a fun outing
as the lights abate
skip to my Lou
at bay
watching the cast make a splash
Logan Robertson
8/2/2018
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 3:21 PM UTC
We rode our horses cross-country,
Through the nations of the unknown,
We survived the snowy mountains,
And lived off the land and the trees,
Through hot summers and cold winters,
Through deserts storms; we circled the trails,
We learned from the birds and the bees,
We hunted the elk, the deer and the buffalo,
We fished to feed the travelling spirit,
We turned acorns into flour,
We set our senses free.
$
Europeans brought Soldiers, missionaries, smallpox, the common cold, scalping, reservations, whisky and the rush for gold.
You brought land grabbers, oil barons, fencing, bricks, barbed wire and all the accoutrements of your civilised culture!
You made this country your own; and forced it's 1st nation people into a 3rd world culture.
You ***** the land of its resources, filled it with waste.
You wasted the water to make coke, burgers,
and fantasy towns.
To reign supreme in a new-world without shame!
Savages!
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 4:38 PM UTC
I’d worked late the previous night,
programing applications.
When the alarm went off at four A.M.
I hit snooze- no hesitation.
Eventually my feet found floor,
I stumbled to the shower.
A routine usually done in ten
took me a half an hour.
I was running up the platform steps
but my train just left the station.
Great, I will be late for sure,
I thought, in consternation.
At least the day was perfect,
Warm and clear, no threat of rain.
I fished and found my ticket
and took the next westbound train.
The ”E” was fairly crowded
When I boarded it at Penn
I’d missed the first and I was glad
Another quickly came.
Beneath the streets of Gotham
The subway lurched downtown.
Above all hell was breaking loose
as two large planes were down.
I climbed the stairs up to the street
And entered the inferno
The sky now black from billowing smoke
Bright day turning nocturnal.
A Seven thirty Seven’s wheel-
I heard a woman screaming
I saw a body at my feet
Were we at war or was I dreaming?
I stared up at my window-
where I worked the night before.
Where flames and smoke leapt to the sky-
where my co workers were no more.
They’re jumping, someone shouted
I saw black specks launch from on high.
Better to die upon the street
Than to suffocate or fry.
I turn and ran, I am ashamed.
No Hero’s tale to tell.
I was a safe way away
when the first tower fell.
Had I not hit the button
or dawdled in the shower.
Had I caught my usual train
I’d be dead in the tower.
This is my shame and burden
To live when others died.
Preserved by fate and circumstance
From terror from the sky.
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 11:04 PM UTC
All present in the stream of time,
Connected they build a line, a river which flows uninterruptedly,
The here and now, is the future of a pasts dream, a wonderous reality,
It is the futures past, the memories recorded within the depths of it
Gravity distorts time, causing it to slow down till it's stopping point lensed from a black hole, lurking within shadows of remorse in space,
Fished out from the sea of passing events, it keeps flowing, but now it does so while not including the fallen one who embraced a blackhole,
Time only knows one path, straight ahead with no slips and turns,
The present is the pasts future and what was thought to be possible,
It is the little wealth every living being possesses yet it is overseen and forgotten, until the moment of ones death drives gladly near,
From the womb to the tomb, drowning within the waves of a temporal lengh, the event of an entity's existence and its period.
A pace for an allotment, given from the complaints of an worldly life,
Spend it well, unlike the spring we cannot turn the tide, recycle again!
But for that matter the world of dreams holds a sweet embrace to all,
After all, you don't need to die in a dream.
~ Umi
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 6:26 PM UTC
We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 8, 2019
Jun 8, 2019 at 9:30 PM UTC
There is a Mouse in this House.
Insatiable,
He keeps me up at night,
thin fine claws on metal stove tops,
whispering to the birds what a fool he's made of me,
because I couldn't make the fibers of my home work with me.
There is a Mouse in this House,
Immortal,
I've fished him drowned out of drains,
fed him bleach on silver trays,
listened to him choke in air vents,
his chestnut jacket perpetually in the corners of my eye,
leaving reminders in my cereal,
this rodent he refuses to die.
There is a Mouse in this House,
Intangible,
he is not slipping through my fingers he's dancing on them,
quick petite feet tapping on my counters,
fleet and fast like smoke,
I've seen him seep through a clenched fist and still escape with wedding bands,
There is a Mouse in this House.
Impish,
he waits 'till I'm alone to play his music,
the crack and chew,
too early with the morning dew,
he will not play his song for you, it'd be too easy to be seen.
There is a Mouse in this House,
primeval,
he's been waiting,
mapped the walls and painted my flaws,
tactician skilled and iron willed,
this beast knows war far more than my militia mind was ready for,
plotting out insurgencies for restless and anxieties,
There is a Mouse in this House,
emaciated,
what's his is his,
what's mine is his,
there is no sacred to things with tails.
clearing out my pantry,
his jaws now tasting for my sanity,
finished with the:
Rye,
White,
and Sourdough,
he's fixed his tongue on sweat breads,
scuttling with unnatural flow,
There is a Mouse in this House.
Charming,
too handsome a creature to ever be singed,
he peddles on the burners simply too strut,
scampering through flames to test his luck,
There is a Mouse in this House,
Insomniac,
from now until each evening hour,
his paws touch turns time sour.
Ivory teeth clanging out a new ink-printed deed,
he owns the tenant and never even had to rent it,
There is a Mouse in this House,
arrogant,
too self-assured and clever,
cunning, devilish a creature he may be,
but he has yet to get a load of me,
holed away within his den,
his first mistake was not letting me win,
setting aria's on fly's wings to declare his victory,
this furry phantasm is all too aware of what he did to me.
There is a Mouse in This House,
sleeper,
I'm plotting my comeback,
sure-footed,
slow breathes,
and savage hands,
I'm ready,
silent and steady;
this beautiful monstrous mouse had best prepare for battle.
There is a Mouse in this House.
But it's my House.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
“No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
“You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Ivan”.
“Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
“Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
“You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
“You mean trout?”
“Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
“Were you in the war?”
“Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
“I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
“After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
“The mines?”
“Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:33 PM UTC
There was once a fisherman,
big rough fisherman who had fished the world
he has caught many small and big fish
he was the toughest fisher who fought for his fish
he was none other than Yainkos the fisherman.
Rushi Nathoo Grade 8b
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 6:19 AM UTC
Hood Canal
I couldn't see, but water
reflecting, it danced from stars of sun
Black cormorant dove under stars and pearls of sea
silvery fished his netted beak
A small boat left untied to float, I rowed
weaving cat tail reeds, long through water weeds
Paddles cut my diamond day - sparkling
jewel of soul swayed, prayed to dive me deeper
Sandy shores mollusk strewn
rippled shells covered shimmering blue
Oysters bubbled shallows breathing
seagull smiled watchful scheming
Beach fire to warm the night
and rock the dusky sun to sleep
the coming moon between trees
dark night, the stars to weep
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 9:33 AM UTC
My younger brother still fishes
when he can, when the weather
is agreeable, when he can afford
some tackle and beer for the cooler.
He sits alone on the river bank
and smokes and drinks and waits
in the shifting shade of cottonwoods
for the unmistakable pull on the line.
He fishes whether
the fish are biting
or not. He is intimate with
psychology and the placid
deceit of undisturbed water.
My brother is an angry man.
As kids, we fished
together on the dock
and killed them
with our hands.
Careful not to kneel
on scattered hooks,
we baited the lines
on our knees a foot
above brackish water.
We dropped fish heads
off the edge of the dock
and watched them float
down, almost out of sight,
settling into final stillness
only to snap back to life
(or the false throes of death)
by the white claws of *****
picking them into oblivion—
goodbye eyes,
goodbye gills,
goodbye teeth,
goodbye scales.
Brother, I don’t remember anymore:
was it triumph or merely shame
that left us shivering in the sun?
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 1:03 PM UTC
Walter was history's best fisherman -
history's best minnow fisherman.
He combed and cleaned his net
like a lint trap or a summer screen door
so delicate, seaweed fibers, mussel shells.
He fished more of a dance, a twirl
his arms up and down and around and always
spun in the shallows like a waterspout
he would glide his butterfly net through the lake
and capture little fish he placed
into a sand castle bucket filled halfway with water
he would always pour back into lake.
He was strictly a catch and release fisherman.
All the mothers on the beach would stare
at Walter and his water waltz and at his mother
who stood next to him so he wouldn't fall.
It was hard not to stare at Walter
always alone with his aged mother
and he had to be at least a teen by now.
Perhaps it was hard to tell, autism doesn't age well,
but we had been beach regulars for fifteen years
and Walter and his mother had for ten.
The last time I saw Walter he danced and fished.
I laid on the beach with my cousin and we observed
his patterns and his mother his rock who stood there
for ten years with the minnow fisherman.
The next day my own mother cried
more than when her own mother passed
and she told me, she died
Walter's mother died
Even now I stand in the shower skin deep in water
and think about where Walter is now.
I see him in my mind dancing in some bath tub
with a butterfly net in some foster home
without a mother to break his fall.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:30 PM UTC
I am aware of red flags
and really aware of the possibility
that these lead to red rivers:
red running rivers
in which I am floating face up
have you forgotten:
I am able bodied?
and able bodied as I am
I am equally swollen with boredom weight
and the weight of boredom
and the perpetual presence
of the inability to see my toes
(if I lean back far enough)
and with this body
(and that body floating in the river)
I have filled a lake of tears
and blood
and ***** and oil
that you have fished in and taken from
in that river I am stained red and blue
and so are the towels I used
(we used
you used)
oh fisherman
retrieved my body
(if you get this message)
because I am calling for you from heaven
you are weeping and heaving
as you hoist my body from the river
it is too late, fisherman
it is no use to pump
red and blue
(purple) water
from my lungs
I have filled myself with it
in its airborne state
and I am watching you, fisherman
from the skies and the sea
in every carp you catch
and whether you eat me or spare me
fisherman
I am perpetually grateful
to your choosing of my choices
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 8:57 AM UTC
*Fished the mild sun from the pond
In waters soothing let my legs float
The ripples gurgled
Soaking slowly the air tender
Floating phrases I sent with rays and ripples,
Sending away boats of sorrows
Bringing back harmony in days that dribble
When fished the mild sun
From the pond*
Apr 13, 2015
Apr 13, 2015 at 11:55 PM UTC
We sat on that old pier,
as the others crab-fished by.
I found my hands beneath me,
in an attempt to keep them dry.
I traced the outline of a mountain range
with my tired, tearful eyes,
and the sun pinned me to the concrete wall,
stripping me of any disguise.
The fresh wounds on my shoulder
still oozed their precious blood,
yet we talked of days still to come
and summers, oh so far ahead.
Yet for a moment I almost believed that
what I’d done had been undone
but you struck me with reality
and my walls came tumbling down.
We looked at each other,
in the wild, unsettling sun,
with the sea-surf sparkling blue
and voices of our distant friends
ringing of the new
and interesting discovery that one crab, no, two,
had broken through the green net -
maybe that was you.
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 4:15 PM UTC
I dream a million fireflies transporting me to this space
A Moon shadow casts a light upon my face.
A Young boy dreaming of tight lines on this Kinderhook NY stream,
Water droplets on frozen fly line, cast a prism sunbeam.
It's this time and special place that etches a constant memory,
Of Standing on that rock casting tight loops across the estuary.
Practice makes perfect as I make a presentation towards this riffle,
I can see a smile on my face, a moment in time that's purely transcendental.
With hope on the rise and a pheasant tail nymph tied to my tippet,
I make my way past the roily water to a calmer spot I'll inhibit.
Stripping line I load this feather chucker and place a nymph on the breezers nose
Zzzzzzz screams my reel and I scramble to fight this foe
As the snow begins to fall, I gaze upon this look of contentment in my eyes
And hover from above to watch myself learning to fly.
I whisper to myself, " Man life doesn't get any better than this",
As I kneel to release my catch, I watch him glide into the abyss.
And at day's end, I find myself walking beside the memory of Lou, Theodore, and Jack,
Three mentors who showed me the way, part of my Wulff pack.
Some Say "if I fished only to capture fish, my trips would have ended long ago",
And now I have something that money can't buy, the gift of learning to fly.
Sep 13, 2016
Sep 13, 2016 at 2:55 PM UTC
Browsing in the bookstore,
I stumbled across
a journal
crammed with scraps
people found
in parking lots,
school yards,
fished out of trashcans.
Now I throw
copies of everything
I write away.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 8:29 PM UTC
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind- with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.
2.2k
He
fished
a dream
in his sleep.
He caught a **** star.
For his cast had a lot of whip,
stretching his limit and rod as far as it can go.
When the rush of a bite sent him reeling he screamed for dear life as his catch jumped ahead.
Logan Robertson
1/14/2019
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 9:42 PM UTC
A picture of us
sits next to your bathroom sink.
I saw it as I rummaged
through cabinets
looking for toothpaste:
I was sunburned, wearing braces,
and you held a wooden spoon
with the same smile,
crooked nose,
and bushy eyebrows
in the kitchen.
You would come home early,
I would chop
onion and garlic,
garlic and onion,
to Metallica blaring
on your stereo.
We can stir the ***
until our hands blister,
but something added
cannot be removed.
There was the summer
we built model rockets,
the summer you took me to meet
our family in Greece,
and all those summers
we ate Krispy Kreme and fished.
I didn’t become an astronaut,
I didn’t learn Greek,
I threw up over the side of the boat,
but because you came home early
so many days in a row – just for me –
that was my favorite summer.
Today, over the
chop-chop-sizzle
in a broken-in kitchen
we fill a stained cookbook
with dog-ears,
small adjustments.
The same ingredients
never taste the same way twice.
We reclaim a day
out of years lost.
Then that photo
by your sink.
It was a small
Father’s Day gift,
survivor of four moves
and twelve years
of self-discovery,
still reminding you – and me –
of summers spent
breaking in kitchens
and recipes
we’ve been making for years.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 12:12 AM UTC
A shilling life will give you all the facts:
How Father beat him, how he ran away,
What were the struggles of his youth, what acts
Made him the greatest figure of his day;
Of how he fought, fished, hunted, worked all night,
Though giddy, climbed new mountains; named a sea;
Some of the last researchers even write
Love made him weep his pints like you and me.
With all his honours on, he sighed for one
Who, say astonished critics, lived at home;
Did little jobs about the house with skill
And nothing else; could whistle; would sit still
Or potter round the garden; answered some
Of his long marvellous letters but kept none.
2k
a series of quatrains
Anchor’s bound for hell as it falls
Sadly I watch the fast rope slip
It is gone, I need a strong sip
From a sailor’s bottle, land calls
In a boat, earth and moon move you
these deceptive cargo ships hide
the stash of smugglers, I choose
To rock back and forth with the tide
Such fearless ships save lives at night
and daytime too but not for thanks
for it also ferries heartbreak
when lovers part on boarding planks
A message in a bottle lost
was found on a cold Cornish coast
The message read “darling please
know my love will swim across seas”
I daren’t live by sea much longer
Oh! what I’ve seen, fear gets stronger
with every lapping slurp I hear:
the drowned whispering in my ear
Once I fished in this bay of shells
My line was frayed from reeling sharks
A blue whale fought me three miles out
In his bowel I awoke at last
Boat or ship? For now ‘ships’ they fly
A rocking chair, without duty
They float, enchant, sink but don’t cry
shipwrecks are a thing of beauty
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 11:56 PM UTC
We have mined our mountains,
we have fished our seas,
we have felled our forests,
we have gathered our grains,
but we have not yet embraced
the infinite energy of our souls,
which is love.
Tod Howard Hawks
Feb 7, 2021
Feb 7, 2021 at 8:35 AM UTC
one thousand shards, my crown was built.
not of thorns.
but bubblegum legos, saturday morning stuck
to the carpet
& days gone by.
crept out of fold and gut/ kid living
& watched by trees.
autumn watches us fall like leaves,
born of the belly and the mother.
mom quiet/
dad loud/
men hid behind blisters and god.
men hid behind tall towers and the bomb.
men bled for immortality,
warred and ****** resource for more, the door
to an endless life.
dad taught me how the heart and brain behold blood,
& how the body manifests it/
moves it/
follows the sun.
son follows father follows god follows ghoul.
dad taught me about the machete.
about how “our fates will dominate us blind.
so man dominates the jungle.”
he told me a story of love and more glory.
of poor men and dead men.
machete theories.
he carved wooden chairs.
built a lodge.
fished the river,
& reeled to forget the war.
harpoon the river gods.
the heart and brain behold blood,
& the body manifests it.
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 12:57 AM UTC
I can still remember the day
you first spoke my name.
Like a prayer, like a wish,
you whispered, you called.
I can still remember the first
time you smiled at me.
Never, before you, have I been
breathless. Never before
have I been frozen in one minute
of eternity , deep in your eyes.
I can still imagine the way you
used to kiss me. For a heartbeat,
I was someone; I was needed; I was
blessed. For a long time, I lived
by your kisses, existed by your touch,
carried on by your embrace.
I had never known bliss until you
chanced upon me and fished me
out of the choppy seas. You loved
me, simply as I loved you back.
And we once thought we were invincible
in each other's arms. We were immortal
because of each other's love. Not even death
could separate us. But we came
upon the end of the wonderful journey. It
wasn't death that made us see.
It was choice.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 11:50 PM UTC