Wednesday 3 March 2021

Poets fish the Night’s Oceans:


It is a difficult hunt in waters

filled with the eternally unseen

afterimages of things imagined

sensory echoes of experiences

bittersweet scent of dreams.

 

The water is deep

heavily salted with tears

forces anglers time

and time again back to the surface.

 

The plunge brings a proximity to death

the other side of life’s coin.

 

it risks forgetfulness and idle hours

staring into the currents words leave behind.

 

old friends float

other anglers greet

some hold up catches that can fade

or appear larger in the light.

 

These fish cannot sate

drive the fishers to try again and again

an addiction

to hunt the ripples, the after-taste, the hope.

 

The quest for what cannot be complete

for what cannot ever be brought

truly to the surface whole

but in parts

scales that reflect sunlight

and hold a darkness within.

 

So cold now

and so warm fishing all these years

they stretch out behind

like the drying bones of leviathans

perpetually now at rest

on the edge of night’s tilted shores.


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