Trawling Poems

Ground Clouds and Fish Smaze

A mackerel sky fillets a fish scaled village,
an ear clapping, full sailed, fog
moors itself to the rooftops,
then hides all in a breezeless blear.

Rheumy eyes peep out from nets,
damp noses sniff abaft trawling drapes.
Cloth in hand, potbellied proprietors
battle the splatter and spray,
dabbing at mildewed shelves,
warding away slopping waders
and salty puddles.

On the sightless sea
far beyond the shore and shingle,
fog horns are lowing like lost cattle.

Later, misty reeks will be scoured
from groggy docks,
hauling hands will rope together
the tide-tossed salvage

by and by, squeaky boots
may trudge to taprooms
where codgers and callow alike
can be well oiled
and duly quenched.

Fog and Water

Fog over the inlet
until water and air waltz together.
colds ears muffled by the dank air.
Grebes and Coots colonize this tributary.
The ocean is close
you can feel the tidal pull of it
the immensity of it,
even through the thick haze
it seems to tug at my small boat.
I hear now, the distant screaking
of coastal gulls.
Trawling fingers in the dark water
mellifluent coils pluck and pull.
Later, sitting in the cabin
I wonder why I did not push
further out from the estuary
advancing towards
the deep sound of the breakers.
I yawn, sup some hot tea from a mug,
smile,
comfortable,
that's the reason -
way too comfortable.

Wave Trawling

Where the tide licks a sandy beach
a running ripple
thins to wash a ring of rounded pebbles -
there, a muddy ribbon
trickles through brine rinsed trinkets
surged up as a slosh of time
from the oceans depth.

Here be the bones of seahorse dragons,
and the beached and bloated
pods of marine algae,
Fractured mollusk shells splinter,
carapace and claws swell
in a mutual dross,
a trawled-up flotsam
tossed upon
low spin drifting waves.

A sculptured driftwood
expressed into mythic forms
anchors its art where the wind combs.
Sometimes coins, both new and old, surface
to be pocketed once more.
Obscure metallic treasures knuckle
and poke-mark the shoreside
with their unanswered questions.

I walk an ankle-deep dawn light
shipwrecked on my own shores edge.
A seagull's homeless cry
keeps me fishing for new depths.

Catching the Catch

Effortlessly out of a seabed of notions
words rise.
Many are eaten by sharks,
or the ever-nibbling krill
of second thoughts.

You learn to make
the holes of the net smaller
no more trawling,
just the quick swoop and catch
will land them still wriggling.

Now recline on the shore of self,
relax,
put your legs in the air, count your toes,
until a line hooks you
to an effortless poem.

Boot Leggings

At the wharf I donned the Wellington boots
Of the fisher deceased, to trace my roots
And see and feel what it was like at sea
For my uncle a fishing devotee.

The clammy boots were three sizes too large.
I kidded myself that I could take charge,
And fill the boots with fishers' gait and guts
Aware the concept was deluded, nuts.

I felt the lure of expectation loom
As the trawler 'Gen' breached to break dawn's gloom
I embraced the hope of a bumper haul
Of keeper fish, not tiddlers, way too small.

I felt the surge of waves tug at the boots,
Like tentacles dragging against the roots
Which held my soles fast on the slimy deck.
The sea incessant for another wreck.

I felt fish guts, innards, blood and gore,
Slather on boots as fish were brought ashore,
And unloaded in bins brimful with ice.
At days end, bootlegging was hard but nice.

Trawling For Sea Bones

The sandy beach
thins into a wash of rounded pebbles
where the tide licks,
before that a muddy ribbon
trickles briny trinkets surged up
from the oceans bottom.

Here be the bones of tiny seahorse dragons,
and bloated macroscopic marine algae,
their seaweed green strands inflated
until the sun bakes
their pale upturned pods into pyrite beads.
Fractured mollusk shells splinter the broken claws
of minuscule crustaceans -
all the natural flotsam of debris trawling waves.

A sculptured driftwood expressed into mythic forms
anchors its art where the wind combs.
Sometimes coins, both new and old, surface
to be pocketed once more.
Obscure metallic treasures knuckle
and poke-mark the shoreside
with their unanswered questions.

I have no questions, walking the dawn light
I am a shipwreck, my mind roaming
along the shores edge.
My heart a seagulls cry, a wilderness call
that keeps me fishing for new depths
of a fathomless self.

Sliding Through the Hood

Stale milk sky,
traffic is trawling for any surfacing light.
Rubber squeaks on the smeared blacktops.
No hills to climb in this part of town
we are flat earth
and mostly just tilted into our daydreams.

Corner shops are damp and derelict
or heaving with low class crime.
Shadows pounce if you drop a dime.
Its a crawl through a gauntlet
no one runs here unless they flee.

The car radio is set to Fox News
we haven't seen a fox hereabout in years
only concrete cemeteries,
islands of amnesia
sprinkled with stone angels,
hidey-holes
where daytime hookers gather
to pray for better weather.

A Buffy Limerick

Trawling graveyards might not sound like fun,
she’ll never stop ‘til her mission is done.
With her trusty wooden stake,
life from the dead she can take -
hunting night creatures ‘til she feels the sun.

All Within a Night Shift

‘My biological clock
is upside down,
fifty years and more of night shift,
so, the experts tell us
will decay one’s memory over time.’

To remember the innocence of youth
from out of these eight decades of mine,
trawling each day within crystal memories
some days those of montage to piece together
others full and complete, shallow also deep.

So many days within images of islands surrounded by blue skies
some where waves of rogue clouds bearing rainbows of colour
crash against walls of submission and resistance,
when life the teacher became the truth to survival.

So sad are these days for our descendants
where childhood removed and the race
to enhance artificial intelligence
brews in one’s veins.

© Harry J Horsman 2022

Bone Lake

There are many bones in the lake.
King Fishers and Great Blues
carry the small ones away
to weave them into platforms
high in the wind whisked sky.

They are always looking for more,
so also is the fisherman with his scouring net
trawling these waters.

The cops are out hunting
for the unlicensed and strays,
there are plenty in these lawless times.

The bone-taking fisherman
snags the bones
that the birds cannot carry off.

Back in his shack,
in the low tangled woods,
he is constructing hollow forms
none of them yet complete.

“Loneliness is a terrible burden,”
he tells the half-made
skeletal constructions.

The bones are impatient 
to be works of art,
and no longer want to found
murdered or drowned.

Nature's Tears

Look at how progress has scarred the planet Earth,
its lush mountains stripped of centuries-old trees;
oblivious to value, just their cash worth.

We're not racked with guilt or feelings of unease,
ecology is the last thing on Man's mind;
we claim the right to do whatever we please.

Mining minerals, we left open soars behind;
gaping gashes cut without a thought or care;
then abandoned; once, we gleaned all we could find.

We've scraped the Ocean bottom, trawling for fish,
and dumped sewerage into the sea for years;
unconcerned for the Earth, we do what we wish.

We need to respond to Mother Nature's tears;
for it will be too late once Man disappears.

Fog and Sea

A mackerel sky fillets the village
then hides it in a breezeless blear.
Heads poke out of net drapes
sniff and fish behind trawling curtains.
Shopkeepers brace for
wet dog splatter and spray
from slopping boots and salty puddles.
On the sight-seeing sea
far beyond the shore and shingle,
lost fog horns are lowing deep
like colicky cattle.
Later, misty reeks will be scoured
from groggy docks.
Hauling hands will rope together
tide-tossed tubs,
then tired feet will trudge to taprooms
where the brackish parts
of codgers and young alike
can be oiled and quenched.

A Distant Nearness

From his hands white, hang blood
diamonds and fur, keys to boardrooms
and shoes shined for climbing
ladders, a cushion upon which to sit
at the table. The eyes of a black man,
glittering, see a seed in his hand without
soil in which to sow. An Indigenous 
woman’s face fades from a missing
person’s poster, one of the Canadian two
thousand. A millennial dresses for a party
as an American Indian, red stripes on
their face, drunk in a plastic tepee. When
you grazed your knee as a child, what colour 
plaster covered your skin? As one family tosses
out cartons unopened, bought but not 
eaten, another father stands counting coupons 
cut, in a queue snaking. I introduced my
boyfriend and came out; you just brought
your girlfriend round for tea. Somewhere in
Central London a polar bear was spotted
sweating and thin, trawling bins for scraps.

Fog and Shale

A mackerel sky fillets the village
then hides it in a breezeless blear.
Heads poke out of net drapes
sniff and fish behind trawling curtains.
Shopkeepers brace for
wet dog splatter and spray
for slopping boots and salty puddles.
On the sightless sea
far beyond the shore and shingle,
lost fog horns are lowing deep
like colicky cattle.
Later, misty reeks will be scoured
from groggy docks.
Hauling hands will rope together
tide-tossed tubs,
then tired feet trudge to taprooms
where the brackish parts
of codgers and young alike
can be oiled and quenched.

Seagulls

The gulls are low, not skimming,
but surfing spray
just above
the rise and fall of crests.

Beaks scythe and catch
tracking troughs.
They seek the in-between fish
thrown
between tumbling parapets
of ocean.

Trawling gullets
scoop,
gulp the spew.

Swigging necks
do not glance back
but plow circles of light
upon the water,

then they dive upwards
into
the wings of the wind.

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