Best Mackerel Poems
mackerel pudding
mackerel cake
mackerel pie for goodness sakes!
mackerel blinds
mackerel drapes
mackerel ice cream on chocolate cakes.
mackerel poems
mackerel words.
mackerel now sounds rather absurd.
mackerel dogs
mackerel cats.
mackerel quilts made by a skittish old bird.
"A Mackerel Sky"
shadows like sun
dance across
an ocean of tears
salt for the stinging
walking on clouds
with the Fisher King,
as if in school
in the swim of things
fishing nets for love
all in the eye
of the beholder
wisdom like pearls
sown,
an inevitable plant,
pregnant with possibility
full-bellied, grown,
then stitched up
embroided
sewn imperfect
the hem of it slipping
needs fast mending
cirrocumulus,
fleecing
altocumulus
blown away
an empty canvas
borne for painting
bluebirds sing
on the backs
of cloudy angels racing
Mares' tails
and mackerel scales
make lofty ships
to carry low sails;
red herrings
far from sure
bloody mind dripping
another colour
washes itself
in a pink mackerel sky -
the observing self
hedging bets and
reacquainting
do or die
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
“According to lore (tradition), a mackerel sky means that the weather is going to change.”
“Mackerel are built for speed and, along with a highly forked tail, can streamline themselves by retracting their dorsal fin into a groove in their body when they swim. Actually, they are the fastest swimming fish, in UK waters, able to swim around 50 metres in 10 seconds. Mackerel, have to keep swimming to live, as if they stop moving forward they will drown.”
Meaning, Mackerel Sky - "a name given to a sky covered with those same puffy cirrocumulus and altocumulus clouds arranged in a pattern of waves, with blue sky peeking through so that it resembles the scales on the back of a mackerel."
It’s all rather fishy. Red Herrings, Mackerel Skies.
feasting gulls gather
on a lip of cockled sand
mackerel mourning
It was my much despised dish
But I ate it with relish,
Because of a granted wish
To be served Mackerel Fish
And treated to a glimpsed quiche
But that was rather childish
To a friend acting British
All of a sudden snobbish
And I hated q wished fish
Like Devout Christians Hashish...
Then, I'd been the quite sheepish:
Unstable Saul Son of Kish
For accepting The Despised
After it was a bit spiced.
Each time, he clumsily drank,
Rapidly shrank:
Increasing glasses of burning whisky
He knew was risky.
Then, twice ‘Pitiless Rum’ he tried
And up he dried
A mackerel, from head-to-tail fried!
Like a plant to soon wilt
At a stand still; did tilt…
Now, exceedingly poor,
His company forcing on a family of four,
He had the Lord God to thank,
Each time, he half-filled his tank.
But it has nothing changed
And his life not re-arranged:
In drinking quarters, of Field Marshal Rank
Which I heard and my heart sank.
God! A man by choice bat-blind,
Straight up to his mind?
To all others perfectly behind
While a perfect wristwatch he does wind…
Alcohol Field Marshal,
Whom to ‘Positive Change’ could brave an “I shall”.