Today's poet

[Harry H Howgill]

Cod Finger

Cod finger He's the one with a smelly touch,
A fishy clutch,
Such a Cod finger beware of his sea of sin,
He'll pull you in.

Fish Finger Hot,
Fish Finger Cold,
Fish Finger in the Pot,
Nine Days Old,
Yer Ganna Hospital.

Classic one Herakles

It's official. FPS now stands for Fishfinger Poets Society.

[Nathaniel Lee]

Morning all not doing much today feel a bit like i've eaten a bad prawn but i haven't. So just going to relax and ride it out.

[N-dubya]

Hello all

I have been reading Ted Hughes recently and being as were on afishy theme or at least were heresmy contribution

Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
They dance on the surface among the flies.

Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,
Over a bed of emerald, silhouette
Of submarine delicacy and horror.
A hundred feet long in their world.

In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads-
Gloom of their stillness:
Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards.
Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds

The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs
Not to be changed at this date:
A life subdued to its instrument;
The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

Three we kept behind glass,
Jungled in weed: three inches, four,
And four and a half: red fry to them-
Suddenly there were two. Finally one

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
And indeed they spare nobody.
Two, six pounds each, over two feet long
High and dry and dead in the willow-herb-

One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet:
The outside eye stared: as a vice locks-
The same iron in this eye
Though its film shrank in death.

A pond I fished, fifty yards across,
Whose lilies and muscular tench
Had outlasted every visible stone
Of the monastery that planted them-

Stilled legendary depth:
It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast

But silently cast and fished
With the hair frozen on my head
For what might move, for what eye might move.
The still splashes on the dark pond,

Owls hushing the floating woods
Frail on my ear against the dream
Darkness beneath night's darkness had freed,
That rose slowly toward me, watching.

[Hes]

Love the Hughes, NDubya. What a treat. I've always loved his poetry but haven't read much for a few years and this has made me determined to treat myself to an anthology. Thanks!

[Hes]

flint chink calls from high
black spattered snow heavy sky
jackdaws head for home

[Alf]

"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)

[Nathaniel Lee]

Excellent hes I like it.

[Derby Tup]

Excellent aquatic Hughes N-dub

[Derby Tup]

Harewood House Red Kite
gliding effortlessly by
no strings attached

[Hes]

flint chink calls from high
black spattered snow heavy sky
jackdaws head for home