"isinglass" poems - Hello Poetry

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green **** hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen --the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly-- I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. --It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip --if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels--until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

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4.2k

Elizabeth Bishop

The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green **** hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen --the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly-- I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. --It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip --if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels--until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

76

Brightest light of pupil Lens of isinglass Lashes fringe your shutters Vision becomes flask. Sparse your recollections Copious your thought You give away your images Your mind completely fraught. In small glassine packets They are completely free But though you've eyes to view them Still you do not see. Soul Survivor 2013

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Mar 11, 2014

Mar 11, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC

SoulSurvivor

Camera Obscure

Brightest light of pupil Lens of isinglass Lashes fringe your shutters Vision becomes flask. Sparse your recollections Copious your thought You give away your images Your mind completely fraught. In small glassine packets They are completely free But though you've eyes to view them Still you do not see. Soul Survivor 2013

14

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green **** hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen —the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly— I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. —It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip —if you could call it a lip— grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels—until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

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May 28, 2015

May 28, 2015 at 12:58 PM UTC

bill-shmuck

Ode to Tyler McCarthy (follow him on instagram ples)

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green **** hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen —the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly— I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. —It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip —if you could call it a lip— grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels—until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

76

icy hot and crystalline you fashion me into the molten dream alive awake aware in your furnace blasted and fused like metal torrid winds sweep your wraithlike breath that mists my isinglass how to be you tell me how to be I am amorphous SoulSurvivor Catherine Jarvis (C) September 24, 2014

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Sep 24, 2014

Sep 24, 2014 at 6:30 AM UTC

SoulSurvivor

Amorphous

icy hot and crystalline you fashion me into the molten dream alive awake aware in your furnace blasted and fused like metal torrid winds sweep your wraithlike breath that mists my isinglass how to be you tell me how to be I am amorphous SoulSurvivor Catherine Jarvis (C) September 24, 2014

25

To compensate for (A -Z) ineradicable alphanumeric character flaws (i.e. mutations of body or mind,) and avoid amass sing wracking up vexatiously undesirable threatening class action lawsuit against Matthew Scott Harris, which preliminary measure taken to avoid disembarrass sing said individual as a majorly flawed individual literal shortcomings of body, mind and spirit, the metier of writing doth encompass a creative realm to trump geomorphology, sans groundmass at the unsolicited expense (mine alter ego i.e. worst critic) will gleefully find, and expose grammatical, misspelling, spelling, et cetera errors to harass glommed together with isinglass hop, skip and jumping to appear as a ******* whereat no respect able collegiate lass would give a fig about me, one totally tubular royal morass, which expert anthropologists stumped asper nonclass if eye able **** sapiens mutant ninja turtle case in point being his wanting in height not e'en pass sing the six foot mark plus mental illness perhaps traceable to besotted cognitive damage inherited predecessors quaffing an overdose of quass made obvious peering at resulting Ct scan results viewed via microscopic spyglass revealing abnormal amygdala automatically designating his aptitude underclass among average human with mettlesome Zeusian brass.

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Jul 7, 2018

Jul 7, 2018 at 11:42 PM UTC

matthew-scott-harris2p

Lurching Toward Grammatical Perfectionism

To compensate for (A -Z) ineradicable alphanumeric character flaws (i.e. mutations of body or mind,) and avoid amass sing wracking up vexatiously undesirable threatening class action lawsuit against Matthew Scott Harris, which preliminary measure taken to avoid disembarrass sing said individual as a majorly flawed individual literal shortcomings of body, mind and spirit, the metier of writing doth encompass a creative realm to trump geomorphology, sans groundmass at the unsolicited expense (mine alter ego i.e. worst critic) will gleefully find, and expose grammatical, misspelling, spelling, et cetera errors to harass glommed together with isinglass hop, skip and jumping to appear as a ******* whereat no respect able collegiate lass would give a fig about me, one totally tubular royal morass, which expert anthropologists stumped asper nonclass if eye able **** sapiens mutant ninja turtle case in point being his wanting in height not e'en pass sing the six foot mark plus mental illness perhaps traceable to besotted cognitive damage inherited predecessors quaffing an overdose of quass made obvious peering at resulting Ct scan results viewed via microscopic spyglass revealing abnormal amygdala automatically designating his aptitude underclass among average human with mettlesome Zeusian brass.

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