.

Fisherman

.

Wrapped in marine air, he

unfurls his net.

Exhaling, the sea seeks

the nylon snare, and the blue

belly fish skim

each other’s fins, scarcely struggling

to fight the inevitable

hunter’s claw.

Suffocating, the sapphire sun

pierces their fishy flesh like a violent dagger.

Their instinctual hearts

not knowing why

they were lifted into the atmosphere

of such poisonous pressure, lungs

collapse under the gravity, die,

hysterical, terrorized.

A smile reflects

on the brilliant crystal waves.

He, with his human eyes

untouched by such foreign agony

counts

each pretty corpse

and sails on,

like God’s shadow

through the caldron

of the inescapable Earth.

 

 

.Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.

First published in “Beneath the Surface, McMaster Creative Writing” Winter 1990/1991, under the pseudonym “Jocelyn Kain” aka “Allison Grayhurst”

     

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

..

“Grayhurst’s rapturous outpouring of imagery makes her poems easily enjoyable … Like a sear the poet seeks to fathom sensual and spiritual experience through the images of a dream.” Canadian Literature

 “Allison Grayhurst’s Common Dream is a massive book by a talented and enthusiastic young writer, with a feel for descriptive, meaningful verse. Philosophical and very deep,” Paul Rance, editor of Eastern Rainbow, U.K.,  spring 1993.

“Her poems read like the journal entries of a mystic – perhaps that what they are. They are abstract and vivid, like a dreamy manifestation of soul. This is the best way, in prose, one can describe the music which is … the poetry of Allison Grayhurst,” Blaise Wigglesworth Oh! Magazine

“Rich images and complex, shifting metaphors drive Allison Grayhurst’s poems. She focuses on sexual love and interior landscapes, widening to include the heart, eternity and all.”  Next Exit

.

.