Best Sinkers Poems
Obsidian oscillated into lava
slid across syntactic streams
tumbled thick greenwood thickets
impenetrability an illusion wicked
shatter splinter sassy sinkers
Lord Ashtar himself lifted gnarled garbage
two big broken black bags to Source
split seconds of screaming searing sores
baby posture soak singular satin
Prophet Daniel’s prison-free prediction
Coloured lava languid loosen
yin-yang of yesteryear’s yarrows
as Watchfulness wed yearnings
no black bumblebees boomerang bombs
rainbow hands bell belly beckoning
Solar flares ignite twin hearts atoning
corona emissions spill splashing space
sodalite sprinkle sundrenched shores
kaleidoscope pupils please pulsing fate
Hearts purely placed on golden plate
Four eyes fathomed Guy Fawkes fickle
feuding onto a fervid foolproof floor
Stonehenge now sturdily steadily stood
sedating simple silent sleep suavely
accede alchemical ascensions
Missions matched mottoed moulded mountains
timelines merge in moss musical movement
Justice jump Jungian jurisdiction
Presence posy a present perfection
Dreams deliver dictums to Duet
Delicious domed desserts diffusing !
The fishing of Scotland's coast
To be honest I have to boast
Please come take a look
And dangle your hook
And join me in traditional toast
My favourite place is called Dunnet Head
With many species it has to be said
One just dangles their line
Hey presto! see what you find
It's a bite, not the weight of your lead
But sadly there has been some stinkers
When the fish must have been thinkers
For many times we did try
In us they espied
Wasting our time dropping our sinkers
Boxed lures lay: belly-up, forlorn, caste off sinkers,
line-less, relics of peaceful bygone days. In vaudevillian
colors of corny-orange: their hooks rusty, their prongs
dulled in an unalluring huddle; the bait lies unused
their drawers lowered like fathers, they recall summer
days with their flies down fondly. The boxed lures lay
belly-up forlorn, caste offs: boat-less, rod-less reminders
upon rickety tables, these tabled reveries of mist and sun
conjoin in conjugal tension. Soon sold to gen-millennial
to: decorate walls, ghost grandparents, mind-meld the screen
dancers to the much missed external world. Where the
fish-belly white daughters and sons could sun with fathers
disconnected from the umbilical cord of the Protestant
work ethic. Box baited: belly-up, forlorn, these caste off sinkers
line-less amble past the detritus of peaceful bygone days
when seas and lakes and ponds provided food for the soul.
Published in the April 2015 issue of Eunoia Review
Childhood Friends (Boys)
Fishing lines and fishing poles
sinkers, hooks and bobbers.
Maybe someday we will go
when we're not playing cops and robbers.
Cowboy hats and balls and bats
my horse an old broom stick.
Can you see? Come look at me!
I learned a magic trick.
Spit balls shot but I got caught
Tommy points and grins.
You did it too I could tell on you.
I miss my childhood friends.
Make no mistakes we're catching snakes
to play with in the yard.
I didn't cry it ain't no lie
when I got spanked real hard.
Racing trains and playing games
this ain't no place for girls.
Summer sun and carnival fun
we wanna ride the Tilt-a-Whirls.
Our first late night but we're alright
see how the scary movie ends.
Creepy crawlers crept our secrets kept
I miss my childhood friends.
Edwin C Hofert
Silent River Run
Research fun gear, on-line or stocked.
Preparation: mixing, matching, dots.
Please, try not to harm the catches we snare;
Eat less of animal flesh;
And, plant lives matter, too....
Date and location decided -- she may or may not attend.
Checking bait and treble hooks, egg sinkers and split shots;
Swivels, bobbers, beads, jig heads and, perhaps, a friend.
Minnows or night-crawlers -- my mind is set on snell knots.
Catfish unknown seek
Rubenesque waters of the
Silent River Run.....
Other cats spout boilerplate
And form-letters to the drowned.
August 15, 2016
It Takes Four - Poetry Contest
Ah, the con a tried and true dastardly, debased,
debacle to test the metal of man.
A contextual contrib to the categorization
for rat-ICK-al political fans.
Simply put, the contest is not for the faint of heart.
Testing the spine of the spineless
demi-gods of media-o-craSS-y against each other
often produces hilarious outcomes, balloons full of
hot air which rise, sinkers like submarines
A-bombs which ann-I-oH-late beating the literal
pants of of pre-despotic predators!
Ah, the con a tried and true dastardly, debased,
debacle to test the metal of man.
A confab of convicts crashing the party of humanity
for their own con-test, loot-seekers all.
Blue ribbon, hollow trophy-seeking, baby kissers.
Even the best of these deep thinkers seldom
produce products which do more
than a-GRAND-Ize themselves.
Hitler con-tested the right to breath of the non
Aryan races...now that's surely contestable?
Kings and demagogue contest the human rights
of man daily, throwing female babies out with the trash.
So in an effort to auto adjust this neolith-ICK behavior
I vote we go sans test!
*There are no spelling errors here
what you see is poetic license.
Grab your rhodes, your lines, your reels.
Grab your hooks, your swivels, your sinkers.
Grab your power bait, your worms, your stinkers.
Grab your tackle box, your cooler, your beer.
Pick a spot, cast your line, enjoy your friends, and have a good time.
Balanced on a Red Rider wagon,
a wooden boat with flaking paint;
split transom
poorly repaired. Ten year olds
with borrowed tools, untrained
in fixing leaks, or boats,
or knowing what a transom was.
Christened the "Neversink,"
but often did, with bamboo fishing poles askew,
the used nine sixteenth nut sinkers
spilling into warm water;
sunfish laughing.
A doomed soup can ship,
crewed by worms,
going down.
Young toes to search the liquid silt
for clams.
Covered in muck, dust, dirt and filth,
The rods were pulled from the shed,
Brought inside, through the kitchen,
And laid all over the bed.
And the tackle box was emptied of hooks and sinkers,
Old lures, old bobs, and line,
Then the esky got emptied of the last camping trip,
Of empty old bottles of wine.
All washed and dried with thick soapy water,
Then packed to wait for the day,
When we’d all get up early and, with our tent and our beds,
We’d simply just drive away.
And the day came along, we all left the house,
Released from the old ball and chain,
We went camping and fishing, up by the river,
In a torrential, cold steady pouring rain.
boats
paddle
circles twine
loons serenade
row
fish
sinkers
plunk circles
bobs dance fishes
hooked
I have been here waiting for you
ankle deep in the salty sea
surrendering away my pride as I gaze into
the spent promises that lap at my ankles.
waves created from the shipwrecked dreams
of what we wished we would be.
life's luxuries picked at by ever present seagulls;
the true connoisseurs of what sinks or swims
the tides and currents of our bodies,
once anchored in the
sound and mind for the
sailor and his mermaid song,
now a voiceless sextet held by
a blind man
who can see it all.
a multitude of minnows
searching for a suitable wardrobe,
waterproof against the hooks and sinkers
of love and the net of deception,
spawned from within the kingdom of the deep
it all seems to me
I swam upstream in vain
to you to be with…you to be yours.
naked truths have barbs
that are hard to swallow
you have changed my life forever
you are never to return are you
I have been here waiting for you
IRISH
Dear ol' dad loved
the way our mom
made fried clams.
It stood to reason
that a deep fat fryer
would be the perfect
Christmas present for her.
He proudly placed it
under the sad, Charlie Brown, tree
he purchased for 3 bucks
two minutes before the lot closed,
on Christmas eve 1955.
The expression
of disappointment
on our mom's face,
evident to me
but masked for
my younger siblings,
made for one of my sadder
Christmas mornings.
Dear ol' dad, as usual,
was half-lit and clueless.
She died way too young.
He eventually used the pot
to melt lead for sinkers.
I never eat fried clams.
Jump out of bed for breakfast, the time is 3 am
Knock on Uncles window, have a quick cold feed with him
Gather up the rods and gear, sinkers floats and line
Looking up into the sky, cloudless and looks fine
A day like any other day, a boy goes out to fish
Uncle votes Corangamite, against the young blokes wish
Get there and the South wind blows, the long walk is for nought
Turn around and head back home, there will be no fish caught
Many times it went that way, six miles of soft sand track
If almost there the winds spring up, can only head on back
Can't count the times it happened, we liked to persevere
There is not much that you can do, pack up, get out of there
Then there are those other times, when all is good to go
Long hard walk was worth the while, when just a breath does blow
Stand out on the rocky shelf, the bait cast to the south
Then you must be patient, 'til it's taken in the mouth
Then set the hook and hang on tight, while you play the fish
They all fight in different ways, to keep out of the dish
Snapper are the prize we seek, big bump on the nose
But ocean Bream are valued too, that is the way it goes
The rocky ledge points to the South, big currents come from there
Bring in big fish that don't belong, because they live elsewhere
Even catch a Kingy, when the bait fish come in range
Or using cabbage for a bait, big Drummer for a change
Now I get the map out, check where we used to fish
Think of all the fun we had, and if I could make a wish
I'd take a visit to those younger days, naturally quite sprite
When a highlight of excitement, was to fish Corangamite
Where is this spot of many fish, you have the right to ask
In sight of many beaches, where the families may bask
A place in Southern New South Wales, where even surfers play
It is at St Georges Head, eastern point of old Wreck Bay
The wind burnt the chill of infant cheek angling for sinkers
unable in the lavender light of dusk to rise, the wind purrs.
A catfish, with finger long whiskers, thrashes in the dusk;
just landed by the hunter, a salt peter pounded writhing husk.
Lost in hunger's lust the fish hunter's fire dies without pain,
hooked by the wind's burn, chilled, the sink holes now blackened, drain.
The wind stills, no longer lithe; it lies, no longer owning, anything;
no longer moaning, not intoning, not even groaning.
Calm now lies angry in the hollow seeking its rebirth,
slipping round and round, it sorrows, wind winding the earth.
I want a man just like Dad
So to find him let me start by saying
He is one of a kind so it will be hard to find
He worked on construction sites all my life he has a dirty mouth but not around his wife
Dad told six of us girls that men are like turds
They smell, and some are long and skinny and some are short and fat
In life some are sinkers and some are floater
steer clear of those girls
in life go for the double flusher
he is the kind that just when you think he is down and out
you can hear him pop right back in again
Now Dad gave this advice to all of us you see
I know I have been single most all my life looking for a TURD without blow flies
Tricia Bernard 6/19/2015
The Interview