Poems
Fishing (a meditation)
for Robert Adamson
Fingers
extended against the line
he strings a contour,
cartographies
of salt water.
Estuary, the word coats tongue
and memory, sediment. Silt
mixtures of detritus and the fecund.
The idea of the fish
is suspended off the periphery of boat.
Beneath, oyster frames;
Saccostrea glomerata
the river’s skeleton
surfacing in tides.
As the line is hit
the fish ignites tremolo,
repeating and sounding.
The fisherman inhales,
as if all his days were here
lit in the scale of sunlight.
This day, the wharf in the low light,
poems wresting home this moment
pared from
many
with fathers or daughters:
riverbanks, estuaries, this deck,
the meditation of fishing.
Through the hours of water sounds,
noise which moves thoughts.
This fish has laid claim to all spectrum’s hues
of blue
and green.
fragile context
in the spirit of impermanence
abandon pronouns & spirited rehearsals
embody the body of the ‘one-off’
all singing all dancing
as if poetry can
survive verbal torture
tongues flapping in the wind
as the windows roll down
you might find shelter in the show pavilion
lick flowers off frosting, a pleasant tulip
or wisteria
while gothic
poetry revivalists
smudge
mascara
dense sounds from the pillow
muffled & remote