While we worked outside in the driving rain in that there London yesterday, my colleague Nigel Mrp Wyant confessed to being useless at fishing, and challenged me to write a poem about it. Here you are, Nigel... The loneliness of the long-distance fisherman. He’s the master of mackerel, the scourge of the whiting sixteen stone dripping wet, and he’s going down fighting he stares at the sea with his feet on dry land and he plays with his spool, with his rod in his hand. The sea bass are out there, and turbot, and ling, but he’s been here all day and he’s not caught a thing the tide’s on the turn and the weather is fine but his bait goes unbitten, there’s nowt on his line his lures are unloved, his efforts at angling not up to the mark, his titbits left dangling his stomach is grumbling, his sprits are low he’s got all the gear, but he’s nothing to show for all of his efforts, just a prick in his hands from skewering worms which he dug from the sand when he still had high hopes he’d return from the sea successful, and laden with fish for his tea. And he casts and he curses, alone on the beach-a while his wife nips to Iceland, and buys herself pizza. © Steve Pottinger. 21st Oct 2013
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 10:09:55 +0000