Fishing

In honour of National Poetry Day, one of my own best efforts, written when I was about 16 (ca. 1999).

As originally written - if you want punctuation, you'll have to add it yourself.


I

Under mandarin clouds
And lavender skies
Where the summer sunset prouds
And the black swift flies

Beneath stormy cumulus
Where evils abode
On wind swept tumulus
Where rivers once flowed

In golden fields
With foolish haste
And through poor yields
Where lives lay to waste

Between sleep and waking
Lies life without care
Lie dreams in the making
I'll wait for you there


II

The dream was a myth
A crumbling cliff
Awake from the tides
To where evil abides

The sleeping wake
Where all was fake
Becomes waking sleep
And you're in too deep

The fields are grey
It's the end of the day
But no summer sunset here
And no happy new year

Between waking and sleep
Where fresh nightmares creep
And crawl in your hair
I'll wait for you there


III

The mandarin skies turn into pure gold
The lavender becomes velvet plush
And though laser eyed wolves still lurk in the bush
The sunsets and mornings seem somehow less cold

The dream isn't over but true life prevails
The evils of night go out of the mind
Yet alone in a room, with nothing of kind
It's hard to be sure what emotion true life entails

The memories fade, like cats in the dark
A warning remembered is all too soon lost
A yearning to recall fogged by vapours tost
But its bite is worse than its bark

A bet some day soon, or maybe a dare
Something will cause that last breath
There is a place between living and death
I'll go fishing, and wait for you there


IV

I wait for your coming and hark at the drumming
Of blood rushing within my ears
Continually counting and soon amounting
First days and then months and then years

With bait in the water I do what I oughta
I sit here and watch for your face
I'll sit, do my fishin' while constantly wishin'
I never took part in that race

For it sure ain't cunning when Death's in the running
And death is the least of my worries
'Cause there's something behind me (I hope it don't find me)
It's small, and silent, and scurries

Wishing for you and yet fishing for you
Though I must it it sure isn't fair
There's a place of my making 'twixt dreaming and waking
I'm sorry. I'll wait for you there