Best Bluegill Poems
rock to rock
small sips
red winged blackbird takes
leaning towards the sun,
Iris protects....
seed to seed
small sips
bluegill takes
below the surface,
shadows protect....
bar to bar
small sips
humans take
battered and bruised,
memories protect....
I feel it tugging
Hanging on - It must be huge!
Bluegill, smiles, grandpa
Haiku - For Sara Kendrick's "A Pleasant Childhood Memory" Contest
Dad was a fisherman, he loved to fish.
But sadly, last year in July he perished.
He caught different kinds of fish, including catfish and bluegill.
Dad was a fisherman, he loved his rod and reels.
Sometimes he liked to fish with his brother.
Stanley and my dad cared about each other.
Dad bought a boat and used it sometimes when he went fishing.
Dad was a fisherman, he found it to be very interesting.
[Dedicated to Charles F. Johnson (1947-2013) who died on July 13, 2013.]
Awakened by the Whip-Poor-Will
Then the cooing of the gray Dove
Spring's sun shining _call of Bluegill
The Oak doesn't call though my precious Love
His love's infallibility
Lift's me in times of trouble and strife
Through all predictability
Of His love like tunes of fife
His great reliability
Lifts me in all of life's great storms
For it's sustainability
Keeps my awesome spiritual being warm
My little girl, you are a jolly fisherman
Catching those fish as only you can
With your bamboo pole and tiny hook
That bluegill your worm for food mistook
Now with your heart bigger than that
You throw it back in with a big ol’ splat!
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Written August 20, 2022
Submitted to “The Jolly Fisherman” Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Julia Ward
Fred visits Bill every month at
the facility he’s been in for years.
Age and booze brought Bill there.
He's still strapped to his bed
so he can't go wandering again
when he gets a taste for a beer.
Bill calls Fred by name this time
and asks if Jim has found a job.
Fred tells Bill no but doesn't
remind him their cousin is dead.
All three would go fishing as kids
for bluegill, crappie and catfish
with cane poles in summer.
There’d be a big family fish fry.
Bill says he’s going home soon
but there is no home to go to.
His trailer was sold long ago
to help pay the bill at the facility
where every so often nurses
turn him to avoid bed sores.
The state checks for those.
A license can be suspended.
Donal Mahoney
A playful brant swam on the pollen-dabbed lake.
A dipper perched on a dog-wood tree so dazzling and aromatic,
he neither decided to stay nor go although his companions were gone;
he had a white head and gray wings feeling a bit too romantic...
seeking through green branches a lonely warbler hidden in a cosy place,
and there he hoped to confide his dreams while he turned artistic.
A restless bittens
searched the tall, sun-dried reeds
of a river not so calm...
did she find some food like bluegill,
not to make her stomach growl?
She kept on searching 'till dusk!
A tawhee snoozed on the smallest spruce...
waiting for the evening to fall.
Written by Andrew Crisci
for Constance La France's contest,
" For ( Four ) Beautiful Birds "
May 12, 2011
Fishing at Lake Red Haw.
I pulled in a long muddy man’s size 11 wader.
It took me eighty-three minutes.
I thought it was going to be a whale.
There was a lot of laughing.
My dad and uncle thought it was
The funniest thing all summer long.
Fish were biting everyone else’s bait hooks.
My sister got her teeny tiny stupid bass
Mounted on a plaque.
My brother got a bluegill mounted.
I insisted on keeping the wader.
That was fifty-seven years ago.
I may still mount it.
'Starfish!' said I, 'thing of a moray eel.'
Be it black ocean space;
Or in the breathing coral seas;
Back into my memories squiding;
To warn me about the sea turtle;
The cetacean coral reef crabbing;
Sharks and piranhas kidnapping;
I heard a tentacled, seagoing inking;
I wrote a story with the octopus pen;
I was a harbour porpoise and you a tuna sandwich;
The brokered bottlenose whale blossoming;
The sphinx moth singeing;
Only this and a sturgeon;
In there stepped a shovel nose 'whale shark';
In there stepped a 'lake trout.';
Dolphins lookout;
To warn me about the bluefin;
The foul flatfish forging;
All my soul within me gorging;
In there stepped a coral sea cucumber;
I have dreamed of the spadefish;
An echo murmured back the word, 'channel catfish!';
The brook trout smiled;
I felt compelled to sniff the squid;
Smells like fish;
It was squish;
Take thy bluegill from out my heart;
Embrace the wish;
Starfish
6/20/20
WRITTEN WORDS BY James Edward Lee Sr. 2020©
‘Waupaca Awakens’
The thin ice cracks
As daylight breaks,
Along the still waters
Of a chain of lakes
Melting snow and slush
Both lapping the pier,
Letting the bluegill know
A new season is near
North of the place
The first sound is heard,
A sign of change is ...
The red-winged blackbird
Their call from the birch
Is melodic and shrill,
Carried on the winds
Of winter's last chill
Leaves of the maple
Needles of the pine,
Rustle in the breeze
Shiver down their spine
Timid, black bear cubs
And white-tailed fawns,
Welcome one of many
Warm, springtime dawns
Mallards in the distance
Returning geese overhead,
Spotted calves yawning
In their fenced in bed
Much seasonal beauty
One small town did regain,
All of Waupaca awakens
From meadow to Main.
(4/4/24)
2nd Place
"Waupaca Awakens with Poetry" Poetry Contest
waupacaarts.org/waupaca-poetry-contest-winners-1
(Just a note for those who may not know ... Waupaca is a small town in the state of Wisconsin, not far from where I live. Their annual poetry contest was held recently and I placed 2nd with this poem ... )
As I gazed out over the slow-flowing creek
Suppressing the agony of losing my child
Tears never fail to spill down my cheeks
As I have repeated this ritual for a while
Making these pilgrimages to this waterway
While I stood on this same slick, muddy bank
I enjoy observing the bluegill and catfish play
Paying their respect. For that, I owe thanks
An army swims back and forth in formation
Alerting the water inhabitants as they often do
Like synchronized swimmers without expression
The fish will come if they think you have food
It's been a year since I freed his charred remains
All that is left of his countenance is this powder
It’s hard to comprehend or for my mind to contain
As I visit my only child's ashes in these waters
You have never experienced fishing until you’ve fished from a dragon.
As far as I am concerned after this experience, no other seat will do.
Dussley, my dragon, entered the lake without making a sound.
I enjoyed the serenity of the lake so translucent and blue.
We sat in silence, enjoying the quietude of the mystical realm.
There were no bullfrogs here, and damselflies do not make noise.
Dussley was as still as the forest trees that surrounded this water hole.
A catfish jumped out of the water, showing off his whole body.
I figured he would be tasty eating, but difficult to catch.
Some of the savvy fish like to tease us fisher faeries.
A bluegill glided past my dragon’s claw; Dussley did not move.
He is the best fishing partner I will ever have, he is the berries!
terrifying synopsis,
pink and purple rhinoceros,
bluegill and Gail winds...
blowing
wild winds and rains saturate the home panes
Weathered Breakfast
invisible questions,
plural and singular,
Raisin Brand™ cereal
eaten
there is a storm brewing in the jungle
and all the little monkey's are eating banana's with breakfast
Weathered Breakfast
2/5/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020 ©
is littered with garnets and blackberries
It hasn’t rained enough in weeks
The ground is hard, hot, and unyielding
The bass and bluegill in smaller ponds
float to the surface
The water is rank with the smell of fish
I was never privileged
to experience the stages of mourning
when the staples of my sea
floated up
I’m grateful for the toughness
Clean water is inaccessible
to most,
the rest take water
for granted
Everything is borrowed time
“I’ve been passing time
watching trains go by,
all of my life”
You are still the rails,
the unflinching direction
of my life
Ideas came in hard. They came in fast.
They opened my dream, and gave me a blast.
Big Bluegill laughed, and sent me quickly home
In my day state, to write a gentle poem.
Few original ideas now, for they did not come in slow.
I remember some of the amazing end lines, but not in a row.
I could not see the clock, when my sleepy eyes fluttered.
What time is it, Alexa? I wondered and muttered.
“It is one oh two, a.m.,” she sang out bright and clear.
The prettiest voice, she is always ready and near.
We have an Alexa or an Amazon in every single room.
She is great company for you, tells jokes, but let us resume.
The insistent wake-up poem in my head, the one that woke me up….
Where did it go? Who has it? Will it be THE poem, Finn name of Huck?
And will another author get the credit? Maybe they should.
Was it ever really mine? And frankly, was it even that good?