the fisherman

a poem

So I wrote this poem yesterday and I suppose it’s about where my head has been at lately and some of the internal struggles I’ve been going through over the past few months, and really how these are just reincarnations of the same struggles with depression and addiction and despair that I’ve always had. In any case, it’s a working title.

the fisherman

wasted all last summer
digging graves

walked away with grass
stains, fingernails
mooned with earth

spent my nights
in the mausoleum garden shed
curled up with a shovel
getting friendly with the dirt

I've done it all before
held a grudge against the sun
its glimmering imposition
such a heavy heat

I try to cast my shadow
back to the sky
like a fisherman's line
but I end up in the drink

shivering wet up to my elbows
I drag myself 
back up the bank
moonlight splashing off the grass

I know this place
these trees, these epitaphs
this climb down to the coffin

press my fingers into the turf
the lawn smell, the dirt smell
new rain and rubber hoses

worms wriggle past my face
as I clamber down

pluck some for the hook.

Thanks for reading and subscribing. I know it’s been a bit slow around here. I’m trying to do better.