The Quiet John

Words hover, rainbow trout

hidden in the river - with soft underbellies,

speckled brown desires - unseen

in the muddy water, gills work

to convert ideas to sentences,

tails flick back and forth to fight

the current of plot, stay still

while the world moves.

Lips pout, wait for fish emerge,

barbel or common catfish, the thought

has hooked the thick lips of consonants

ripe to be cooked in conversation;

verbs found in the murky ground,

amongst the mounds of reeds and grasses –  

form in the sound space behind his teeth,

mingle, as if in a school, dart

to and fro – are lost in the deep nooks

and crannies underneath the bank; wait

for intelligence to find them. On the surface

still eyes - as distant as a fish’s thoughts - stare

back without a hint of confusion, the action

occurs beneath. His words skim across stones

and boulders, slide away as if each smoothed-out letter,

covered in slippery moss, cannot be held

by the shape of his grasping mouth or clamorous mind.

One day he will submerge people

as if to return them to the sea; even the great

fisherman will be pushed beneath

and face the truth of his humanity -

from the ocean we came,

from the ocean we will return.

One day his head will be served

upon a silver platter

like a fish head at the feast,

his words forever lost,

the ocean a distant echo

in the dying spectre of his ears.