Barbaric Trophies

Out on the sleek & silent sea
I met an eerie vision:
five fishing vessels under lee
of mountainous ambition.

Their sails were torn, their gunwales worn,
their crews were far from ready,
each man had blown his fishing-horn
into a swirling eddy

of ducks & dreams to buck the beams
those currents seemed to foster.
The courage to undo such schemes
was more than they could muster.

Instead they summoned from the shed
where fire engines towered,
a high-explosive hydrant head:
by flames they were devoured.

The firemen, on the other hand,
recovered from the wreckage
and winched the trawls & nets to land
up on the ghostly deckage.

Beware, don’t take your fishing rod
to whirlpools of desire,
where firemen haul in shoals of cod,
and fishermen catch fire.

Jane Røken

If you have any comments on this poem, Jane Røken would be pleased to hear from you.