.

Gorge

Millennia before the Bass Pro tours,
Sonar fish finders and electric reels,
Some unsung pioneer dreamed baits and lures,
Felt in his blood how landing lunkers feels.

The knuckle dragger took a piece of bone,
Slivered it down to a promising size,
Fashioning the gorge and braid all on his own,
And hauled in a flathead to whoops and cries.

Fast forward to our present, humdrum day:
We cast, our only catch a cigarette…
At least we’re out of our better half’s way:
We are his legacy, we’re in his debt.

.

.

Stephen M. Dickey is a Slavic linguist at the University of Kansas. He has published widely on Slavic verbal categories, and has published translations of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian fiction and poetry including Meša Selimović’s Death and the Dervish, Borislav Pekić’s How to Quiet a Vampire, and Miljenko Jergović’s Ruta Tannenbaum. He has published poetry in various journals including Shot Glass Journal, Trinacria, The Lyric, Rat’s Ass Review, Lighten Up Online, Better Than Starbucks, Asses of Parnassus, and Blue Unicorn.

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3 Responses

  1. Paul A. Freeman

    For a sequel, you could add ‘the den’ to fishing as an escape from ‘her indoors’ as we say in Britain, a term for which I got much berated the other day.

    Very humorous, Stephen.

    Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Fishing is great for many reasons–meditation and getting out of the way–among the best of them. Always ask the wife to make supper anyway, just in case the fish are not biting. You may be closer than others think to the origination of fishing that may have included getting out of the cave.

    Reply
  3. Stephen Dickey

    Paul and Roy, thank you both for your comments.
    Part of the motivation for writing this was the experience I have had for over a couple of decades of driving out to the local reservoir on coldish, windy days when no anglers’ boats are out, and there’s always some solitary guy standing on the rocky shore fishing. I’ve never seen one of them get a strike; I came the conclusion that they are just out there getting away from something.

    Reply

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