They arrived in rusted cars and ancient trucks.
Slugged blue-collar champagne from coffee mugs.
Playing one-eyed poker with calloused hands.
Laughing like jackals -cussing like burning crabs.
They solved all of the world's many problems.
Through unfiltered thoughts and whisky logic.
Smoking Swisher Sweets while nodding heads.
Agreeing between puffs and silver nods,
That a godless world is better off dead.
The next morning, the sky was hungover.
They tallied tackle and fired up grandad's Evinrude motor.
That night, they gazed upon God's waning embers.
Enshrining lost lunkers and the ghosts of old friends.
Sunday morning, they slowly packed up paradise.
Hand-me-down tackle and one-eyed smiles.
An angel in the shallows waved them goodbye.
Down a dirt road they drifted away like misty skies.
The following year there'd be one less from the caste
In a sacred place they laid an old fisherman's hat.
Zebra is not the odd one at all
In tales of adventure so springy and tall
In the land of the wishy swisher kings
The zebra is zippy, kind of one of the zings.
One slushy day, a Jolly fisher fishes
a wishing well, where he knows splashy fish is.
For Princess Tricia's favourite dish is,
a plate of little squishy fresh whitefishes;
and Tricia gets all she ever wishes.
Too selfy selfish to accept shellfishes,
Dogfish, Catfish, or even some Swordfishes;
and despite her mother's pushy tisch tisch tisches,
a plate of little squishy fresh whitefishes,
is all that Princes Tricia ever wishes.
The dashing, raffish, jolly fisher's wish is
by fishing for the squishy fresh whitefishes,
surely he should switch Tricia's fishy wishes;
then introduce and show some swisher dishes.
A Jolly Fisherman Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
Date wrote: 8th September 2022
Though it's been decades and a million one-eyed jacks ago.
I can still remember them coming into the casino from the cold.
A weathered, silver-haired lady and a younger man.
Both dressed in beat-up blue jeans and plaid shirts.
I guessed they were mother and son. But I could have been wrong.
They pooled their money at a low-stakes blackjack table.
They were humble and pleasant, unlike the rest of us.
They ordered sodas unlike the rest of us.
They always bet the minimum, like most of us.
Depending upon the ebb and flow of the game,
they would slide 5$ chips back and forth to one another.
They ran into a cold table, colder than the outside they came from.
They didn't last very long at the table; nobody really does.
They slowly drained their sodas and were gone.
For a short while afterwards, there was still a hint of swisher sweets,
perhaps a little bull thistle and mint in between.
I like to think they broke even, but I know they didn't.
when the sun begins to fall
and the children are settling down
i pour myself a captain and dew
grab my poetry bag and notebook
slip out the back door
cuddle in a lounge chair under the summer stars
look up in the sky and picture my thoughts
listening to the nights animals and
the cars, trucks and motorcycles leaving the bar across the street
the laughter of a drunk on the patio having a smoke
i myself light a swisher sweet
watching my trail filter off into the air
leaving all my worries behind
then i begin to write
that's my relaxation!
6.14.12
karen croft
No Love in childhood, it's understood why we love our hood,
Raised by the village so I feel it,
Afeni says a child needs knowledge in the realest,
Everyones a teacher, so I listen to hear it,
Keep my ears to da street, cuz it speaks as it rots,
wit drugs and cops, posin mixed wit rock,
On my Block, You either survive or get knocked.
This Man we call Tube Socks, Lives outside 711,
wit a sign that says waitin on heaven,
Cant give um cash, cuz hes on crack, wonder why he gotta be like that?
Sometimes I just stare, wonder why hes there and Im here.
It was tough growing up, I saw to much to soon,
Seven years old open the curtain in my room
see a gang out back, always said I'd never be like that.
But life changes like a river,
and I became a fiend for the liquor,
Get high and Prophesize while smokin da swisher.
Don't think I'm a saint, cuz I'm just a sinner,
I see da bigger picture, its all connected,
Im to young to understand it, but I try and respect it.
In the evenings
was the rooftop,
swisher sweets and sometimes
something in particular.
say we were young
say we both knew better
play the saint, its O.K.
say that you felt it too
Was it not
the grooviest thing;
our outrageously shameless,
fist-shaking dream for two?
say we were dumb
say our heads were on backwards
kick it likewise to the curb
say you never let it go
Yes, we gazed with eyeless faces
off into the new blue,
embers ageless in an unborn sea;
exhaustedly raging against the hour.
say you went numb
say it with conviction
to an expatriate heart, surrender
say everything, say nothing
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