Ballads from an Unlucky Fisherman

By Lenny Everson
rev 1

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Cover design by Lenny Everson

****

Ode To Starving Fish

In waters deep as an abyss
On ledges, on rocks, on shelves
In bays that are mud-lined and weedy
The fish are starving themselves

The ravenous pike’s got his jaws clamped
The bass have all gone to bed
Rather than chance being caught by me
They’ve decided they’d rather be dead

They know I’m up there, the devils
They sense the stomp of my feet
And rather than risk being taken
They refuse, completely, to eat

O fish, I ask, is it worth it?
To lie there growing so thin
I’m not that super a fisher
I can’t pull many of you in

I load my gear back in the trunk
For I can tell when I’m beat
Time to go home to the wife and kid
So the fish can have something to eat.

****

The Walleye Fisherman

He thinks the rain is turning to snow
And he thinks the wind is dropping a bit
But it’s an hour to dawn, so he can’t really know
And his mind is thinking of the first good hit

His rod is frozen to his glove
His stomach is empty in spite of the beer
He’s abandoned the comforts normal men love
For opening day, for one more year

The river runs by, and night turns to day
And he catches a couple, both pretty small
He loses three lures by the first small bay
But he’s here just for the fun of it all

The river gets crowded with boats and with men
He cusses the ones who roar by too fast
And someone snags his line once again
When he turns upstream for one more pass

When he’s got his fourth and the wind’s getting strong
He decides he should quit along about then
Go home to breakfast, to warmth and a roof
And get up tomorrow to do it again.

****

Ain't Ice Fishing Grand

Out across the bay there runs
Miles and miles of ice
The sun is shining, the wind has dropped
Isn’t this ever so nice

So I drives the car a long ways out
And park, and get out my gear
Set out the auger and rig up my line
The very best time of the year

Till the auger gets through and I find out
The ice is three inches thick
And it occurs to me I might have to move
And maybe to do it damn quick!

So I load up my gear and start up the car
Noticing now the sound
The crackling and groaning and rumbling
Coming from all around

Foot on the gas, hand on the wheel
I’m driving straight towards shore
Foot on the gas, and hand on the wheel
The rest of me leans way out the door

And as I drive up the bank to the road
Gratefully onto dry land
This thought passes once through my mind
Blimey! Ain’t ice fishin’ grand!

****

Fishing For Walleye

These are grey and ordinary waters
And there must be fish
These are damp and ordinarily winds
There must be fish, below

The hammering motor seldom coughs
Weeds are plentiful
The beer is long gone

There must be fish, but if there are
They all hate us
Or are starving themselves for some reason
Known only to walleye

I spent all week thinking of fishing
I spent the last hour thinking of dry, dry land.

****

The Bass Man

The day is slowly cooling
The mosquitoes are getting hot
When everyone else is home in bed
The bass fisherman is not

Wherever there’s a rock
That might possibly grab a lure
Or a log that’s mean and snaggable
You’ll find him there for sure

He won’t use a bait like a crayfish
He won’t use a worm like he should
If a bass could possibly tell what it is
It’s obviously not very good

So he uses a popper that looks like
It comes from the backside or Mars
Or a spinner with dime-store beadwork
Painted with gold and blue bars

And you’ll find him in places suitable
Only to mosquitoes and gnats
Sharing his time with the leaches
The dragonflies, and the bats

When darkness is falling quickly
And the mosquitoes are beginning to feed
A bass man’s out there somewhere
Saying unkind things to a weed.

****

Fishing with Gord

Fishing with Gord
Out on the lake
Is as much fun
As I can take

Sore on my bottom
From the metal seat
And almost sure
Of frozen feet

Maybe the walleye
Bite in the fall
I believed that line
I believe them all

The hammering motor
Has scrambled my brain
I think I'll never
Do this again

I've done my duty
To this cold bay -
I've dragged most
Of the weeds away

Fishing with Gord
From then till five:
I've had so much fun
I'm barely alive.

****

In The Rain

“Fish bite better in the rain
So the experts say.”
That’s what I told my wife
Very early today

And here I sit in a long-driving rain
Knowing darn well that I lied
But the cold and the rain and the slow-moving wind
Are correcting something inside

The far-away trees and the rain’s steady hiss
Are gently unwinding my mind
And the thoughts and truths of a nine-to-five world
Slip farther and farther behind

The drone of the motor keeps cold, wet Gord
From saying the same things as my wife
So he sits in silence, unable to halt
My steady recovery from life

And sometime today I stop being part
Of some glass and aluminum square
And start to be part of water and land
Of rain and the cold summer air

And I know what I’ll say when I finally get home
With just enough fish for the cat
“Well.., fish usually bite better when it’s raining
Everybody knows that’.

****

Tackle Box

Every tackle box I’ve ever owned
Has come with a specialized latch
Designed to be unforgiving
If I haven’t made sure of the catch

I recall the way the boat bumped ashore
On a black and starless night
How glad we were of the three bass we’d caught
And wished we’d remembered a light

Because I set one foot into the mud
That locals call a shore
And reached for the bait and my tackle box
And tried for one thing more….

Three treble hooks caught in the zip of my fly
A jitterbug snagged into my knee
Ten plastic worms slithered into the mud
As if they were glad to be free

My bootlaces caught me a Daredevle or two
Four Rapalas grabbed onto the net
And what happened to my favorite ten-dollar lure
I certainly haven’t learned yet

My floating lures mostly floated away
The sinkers sank into the mud
And a bass came and ate an old popper
I’d always thought was a dud

My split-shots rolled down the length of the boat
And into each cranny and crack
Where they rattle and grind for the life of the boat
(I never got half of them back).

I found a Wabler when Gord stepped on it
After he’d tripped on my knife
And the way the spinner clung to his thumb
He’ll remember the rest of his life

I’d still have that tackle box today
If I hadn’t thrown it quite so far
For it got rather damaged when it finally came down
On the roof of my bother-in-law’s car

Now I carry my tackle in an old duffel bag
And everyone thinks I’m a nut
But at least it’s open when I want it open
And otherwise the damn thing stays SHUT!

****

Afloat

The attraction of mankind to water
Is wondrous to see
There are many places to fish in a boat
But darn few places to pee

Houses, cottages even cities
Line every possible shore
So what do you do when you bladder
Just doesn’t care any more?

I’ve heard the people tell me
Fishing’s a peaceful delight —
Does no one else drink anything
Till after ten at night?

Two little girls with hula-hoops
The minister having his tea
Are the closest of all people
In the hours that I need to pee

The minister of transport
Is a very compassionate man
That’s why he makes sure
Each boat has a bailing can

So. at last when it seems
That you’re totally afloat
Only that bucket keeps you
From falling out of the boat.

Now, I’m very fond of fishing
And I don’t mind the human race
But I DO wish we wouldn’t gather
All in the same darn place!

****

The Pike Fisherman

The man who fishes for pike, now
Is a special kind of a breed
He’s developed a love of the sunlight
And very large masses of weed

Not for him the rainstorm
Not for him the night
He chases his pike when the day’s at its best
When there’s warmth, and plenty of light

When the water has barely a ripple
When the sun is bright in the sky
He’ll explore the edges of covers and bays
Letting hours and forests drift by

And he can’t envy those who fish in the dark
Or the rain, for walleye or bass
Or those who scuttle along overgrown creeks
Dredging for those trout that might pass

And if he gets five pike in a day
Or If he never gets one
He’s been part of water and sky
He’s had his day In the sun.

****

Bass Day

The lawn needs cutting
The garden's lost in weeds
The wife's got a three-page itemized
List of her needs

The roof leaks a bit
In a hard-driving rain
The dog's got loose
And is gone again

I ought to work
I sure ought to stay
But what can I do…?
It's a bass-fishing day

Let the lawn grow deep
Let the darn dog stray
I know where I'll be
On this bass-fishing day

So here I sit
Out in the bay
Deep in the middle
Of a perfect bass day

So who's complaining?
I'm not so dumb
I man needs something
To get away from!

****

Renting The Ice Fishing Hut

Five bucks an hour, you say
To rent that ice fishing shack
Does It come with a keg of draft beer
And a lavatory out in the back?

No? Are the seats as hard as I think
Does the inside smell of old fish
And cigarettes and pee and beer, sir
Do you imagine that’s what I wish?

Is it true someone caught one today here?
A seven-inch perch you say
But you think the salmon are running
Or maybe its whitefish today

Yes I see the ones in your pictures
Tacked up on that old board
Maybe I’ll be as lucky as those guys
Standing by their model A Ford

Say are there pike in these waters?
They run in a monstrous pack
And last week some people complained of
The numbers they’d had to throw back?

Since it took thirty dollars in gas
Just •to get to this bay
And since I’ve planned for a month now...
I’d be happy to take it today.

****

Ginsberg Goes Fishing

I have seen the souls of men brightened by merely the thought of going fishing
Huddled in cubicles and on shop floors and stopped in their tracks on four lanes of gorgon-headed traffic, their hearts shrivel and the mind wanders the edge of sanity.
But for the glowing, burning ember kept alive by the thought and dream of going fishing.
Some lived out their lives, some lived them on water above the mystery of where are the fish are there fish why aren’t there fish and ah, was that a bite?
And down down in the crawlspace deeps in the gloom where sunlight fades to dun and dark or in the weed-waving shallows where circle shadows of lily-pads are broken by sunlight, broken by wave
Swim the pikes and trouts and eels, the catfishes , skulpins, suckers, mooneyes, mudminnows, smelts, gars, and bowfins, the salmons and sticklebacks, basses and sunfishes and perches and walleyes and giant muskellunges eye to eye with the placid primitive sturgeon twice their size.
I have seen these men wading in stores and caught by Mepps and Daredevle and Little Cleo, by jig and Jitterbug, hook, line and sinker, by spinnerbaits and spoons, steel line and monofilament and come back to their senses still stuck in traffic at the Eglinton exit
And the radio saying the freeway’s busy today buy it’s like being a busy sardine in a can
But what keeps the soul from crawling out the window and running screaming from car-roof to car-roof is that ember, that goddamn-it-the-weekend’s-coming and the fish are waiting, quiet, in the bay.

****

Shakespeare Goes Fishing

Let nothing stop a true man in the taking of fish –
Hauling slimy creatures out of grim greenish water
(Too befouled to drink) is his one wish;
To yell, to pull, to net, and finally to slaughter.

Let not the cost of lures and motors and boat
Turn a man in pursuit of a fish, in chase of dreams
For his heart’s in the tackle box and his soul’s afloat
With one on the line, nothing matters, it seems.

A man’s not a fisherman if he lets work interfere
Or house-chores, jury duty, earthquake or war
The choice of a line, and maybe a beer:
By God! A fisherman knows what life is for.

A true man’s unstoppable when he’s out fishing
The rest – losers and dickheads, wasting life wishing.

****

Robert Frost Goes Fishing

Two walleye lures lay there within
My nifty plastic tackle box
And tonight a contest I’d sworn to win
Before the boats had left their docks.
A choice as evening gloom rolled in.

Should I go with silver spinner -
Or maybe the plastic worm and jig?
Ah, the silver’s brought home many a dinner
And this river’s full of rock and twig…
So silver’s sure to make me the winner!

Back by ten: the rules were clear
Bring the biggest fish you’d caught
Declare a winner, drink some beer
Describe the one you’d “almost got”
While others pretend not to hear

The boats move slow, the time goes by
My silver lure catches only weed.
Did I choose wrong? I question my
Decision as my hopes recede.
I question fate, I ask the fishes why

And I alone fishless among these gents
For they chose jigs to use this night
And comment on my intelligence
I chose the lure less used all right -
And that has made all the *&^)(&%$##$!@()*&&$&%^$&* &#@#(&)(@#&)#$%^ ***(&^()&*+*%^&$%*&%*&%&
*%&*%*&%&*%&*%&*%&%&*%&*% difference!”

****

Kilmer Contemplates a Fish

I think that I could never wish
To do a better thing than fish

I’m sure that I could never find
A finer way to lose my mind

Than poking through my tackle trays
Wondering what still works these days

Always hoping I can guess
What’ll make a fishy brain say, “Yes!”

But sure that I will never know
What’s really happening below

Poems are made by nuts like me
But fishing’s a crazy sanity.

*** End ***

Lenny Everson [lennypoet@hotmail.ca] is, indeed, a man whose friends break into laughter when he mentions going fishing. Most just choose another place or day to fish; nothing's biting but mosquitoes when Lenny's out on the water.