Mr. and Ms. Busybody Go Fishing

Mr. and Ms. Busybody are always standing by,

listening and fishing,

 is how they spend their life

Mr. and Ms. Busybody standing by Gossip Lake

fishing all day, and all night

 no matter what it takes

Mr. and Ms. Busybody have nothing else to do

they love to fish

they love to catch

and love to stir their stew

Mr. and Ms. Busybody are really rather sad

 fishing

has been the best time, they have ever had

by KMH 2015

Hour 3–Small Fry

Dad wasn’t there that day

wouldn’t have been interested

so Mom filled the role gladly

did the dad-thing by

renting a row boat

she took us boys fishing

because boys needed to do things with worms and hooks and poles

and feel the thrust that oars made against water

it was a lake near a discount store with a highway going over

not exactly Nature

not exactly fish fish

sunfish

little ones

even smaller in the frying pan

 

Selkie

You have my heart, take my liver.

My spleen.

You f*cking Butcher.

Carver. Carving me up.

You can’t dissect me anymore.

Not any more, than I dissect myself.

Every word, Every touch, Every moment.

I have picked them apart.

At seeing them broken, I have reassembled them dutifully.

Carefully. Swiftly.

I wrap myself in a mossy blanket of misery.

Wet leaves stuck to my face, forest kisses.

A slippery Selkie out of her skin.

I want out. Out of this forest.

To transform back to the cunning sea.

She will heal me.

Wordlessness

Today will be about losing words.  It

will be about verses falling apart, without

music or fanfare.

 

Nothing will rhyme.  Nothing will be

described as it really is, because all

we have is speculation.

 

Outside, from a great height, far

higher than the gulf stream, all that was

ever written will fall apart.

 

Even the names of those we know will

be taken up in the wind of anonymity,

becoming soundless

 

as verse by verse, their bones become

one with the earth.

 

(c) Ella Wagemakers, 17.34 Dutch time (= 11.34 EST in the US)

Hour Three from the Fish

It looked tasty so I wrapped my mouth around it.

When I tried to swallow there was a sharp feeling in my mouth.

Then a pulling sensation.

Then a massive lurch forward.

It felt as though my lips were being ripped out of my head.

I tried to resist but the more I struggled to swim away the more painful it was.

I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t breathe.

The bright light I only ever saw through the shimmering shield of my watery home was suddenly all I could see. I desperately wanted to close my eyes but couldn’t because I don’t have eyelids.

Then, I was flying for the first time in my life. Flying above my home with empty lungs. Flying like those creatures I often saw above me.

When I hit a hard surface I was grabbed by the hard hands of a big monster.

It ripped something out of my mouth and I screamed. I don’t think it heard me.

You don’t want to know what happened next because it involves a long sharp object – and being gutted and skinned alive.

It was very unpleasant and I died from agonising asphyxiation.

That was not a very good day.

 

prompt 3

Fishing on Fish Quay

Angling for an opening,
Casting about
For a date.
Hoping to catch
the one that got away.

Lining the walls
Of the clubs,
and the halls,
A lure for the one
Who wont get away.

Patience and beer,
Long night in store,
Come on, little fishy
Fall for my line,
And you wont get away.

Poetry Prompt One: Underwater

You are not here with me,

As often as I can’t breathe,

As if you have taken my lungs as well as my heart,

deep down with you, far into the beneath.

With what could be,

A steel coffin wrapped around you all,

I wish your job was easy,

As I continuously wait for that phone call.

Together, we are apart and alone we fall,

You can’t talk and I can’t breathe,

With me wishing on dry land,

And you descended thousands of feet beneath.