The fisherman/poem-story


Every Saturday morning he went fishing in
his little rowing boat and in the afternoon
he came back with a bucket of sea riches,
already gutted and cleaned for his wife and
friends; Monday morning she washed his
“fishing” jeans, hung them on the balcony.

One Saturday he didn’t return, they looked
for him everywhere on and under the water,
his boat was found floating nice and clean
on the mirror silent sea; and there was great
lamentation, greatly missed by wife, friends
and fishmongers.

Time heals grief and sorrow his widow,
still young, and one day another pair of
jeans hung on her balcony, bluer, longer
and perhaps wider around the waist, and
the aroma of fresh food of the sea wafted
through the house just as before.


The disappeared man had gone to Spain
with his mistress, there they lived happily
for a month or so till his saving was gone
and he had to take a job on a building site
12 hours a day six days a week, as a low
paid illegal worker without valid papers.


This ill suited his mistress who liked to
go out at night, dance and talk to friends
he was too tired and went to bed at nine
in the evening… This was no good, even
worse, when he came home and found
furniture gone, soap and toilet paper too.


In despair he took the bus home, and in
vanishing light walked through his old
street looked up and saw the jeans hung
there to dry, knew all was lost, found his
boat neatly docked, rowed and rowed to
land had gone and he vanished for good.


On the mirror silent sea a boat was seen,
in it a few dead mackerels and a pair of
Spanish made boots; there was gossip,
mad rumour spread by an old man who
said he had seen the ghost of the missing
walk through the street at twilight time.

The boots fitted the new “fish winner,”
since little troubled him, he wore them
with ease, but kept them in the boat as
the widow didn’t want to be reminded of
her vanished husband and the soft voiced
murmur that whispered of infidelity.

joh