POEM - Water Retension

In just one whisk of a
febrile moment, a fly on a whip of wire
hits the water, awakens it
ringing
across the tension like a bell
until that vibration, that throb of presence
hooks the eye, then the mouth
of a distracted minnow, till it is ritually
netted, extracted and examined like a specimen
on a grassy bank,
invariably
something else comes up
flailing and gasping in harmony with the fish,
a message
bound in the same slime envelope
that turbulence muddied, it releases an ancient sigh
once abandoned, hurriedly concealed
rushing up to freely associate with the present moment
the outward demeanour of clouds, the blue framed sun
breaking through the ripple glazed ceiling, between
subliminal and liminal, its a fragment of a page
emotionally ripped
from the half remembered
pored over now, as we walk again
in its forest woods, breath in its pollinated air
inhabit its words, its angles and trajectories
bathetic consequences
that didn't go right, back then, did it?
has it ever? for you? for them? for then
does not look good for being kept quiet about, even now,
you come out of it bad, still so blinkered
to what was wrong on your part
double dipped in selfishness and shame
every regretful cough
requires you to swallow hard
whilst observing the guilt itself forage for further food
like squirrels in the fall do, kicking up
speckled cancerous leaves as they go
madly scampering
across long cast shadows, thrown
further away, by the low slung obtuseness of a
winter sun, pulling the limbs
of trees, into the pleading elasticated arms
of El Greco martyrs filled with remorse,
a small teaspoon of mercy to lay
at the feet of the smaller god head, that is you,
the eternally virtuous version, endlessly rewarded
with a venerable absence of mind, a lousy grasp
of history, a forgetfulness, not only infectious
but careless, because
it conveniently absents you from reading aloud
the written details
on the page, what you should regret
but you know that just so long
as you are prepared to wait, sit it out, say nothing
thoroughly enough, this bubble will burst
the surface waves subside, the fish returned to its pond
and nothing will remain
to say to self or other, that whatever happened
happened, there will just
be you, the fly and the vague aroma of something
not being quite right
quickly blown away on a light breeze.


Written December 2021
Stephen Lumb