ODE TO A DEAD SALMON: TWO PERSPECTIVES
(with apologies to James Russell Lowell)
by Susi Gregg Fowler
Mine
Oh, what is so foul as a midsummer day?
Then, if ever, the putrid reigns,
when the wind brings a stench
that will make your teeth clench,
and even the atheists pray
for a wind to blow in that does not smell of skin
and the fetid, raw scent of decay…
and the faithful, on knees,
beg the gods-pretty please
take this godawful smell far away.
My Dog’s
Oh, what is so grim as late summer time?
Then, if ever, the crazies reign.
I cannot comprehend
why I seem to offend
when clearly, dead fish smell sublime.
When I’ve rolled (ah, delight) in dead chum, it’s not right
to condemn me as if it’s a crime.
First she screeches, “No! No!”
Then comes the real blow—
She scrubs off all that glorious slime!
ODE TO AN INTERESTING NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE FOR A SALMON
by Clint Farr
The salmon looked at me.
And both of us could see,
One of us would die that day.
I caught her on the fly
Sure it was she who would die.
What happened next, only I can say.
There was that first inkling,
My day would be stinking,
When the hook let loose into my face.
To my short lived but lasting regret,
A bear became understandably upset,
By a scream to wilt a wedding bouquet.
Alas my end did not come
At the claws of a mighty bruin,
But an attack of a swarming wasp gang.
See, my still heart relaxes
Less bear; more anaphylaxis.
The bastard bumped the stingers’ hideaway.
So dead as glass I lay.
Not fish - but me - that day.
The salmon a free and pristine piscine runaway.
The salmon looked at me.
And both of us could see.
One of us, would die, that day.
THIS IS JUST A TEXT TO SAY
by Kelly Robinson
i 8
the salmon
that wr n
the fridge
& which
u bought
@ Costco
4 KT’s thing
after bookclub
4 give me
they wr delicious
so pink
& so salmony
ODE
by Barbara Belknap
Her dorsal is ripped,
The adipose in tatters,
Clutch of eggs long gone,
Nothing really matters.
The adipose in tatters,
Clutch of eggs long gone,
Nothing really matters.
ODE TO DEAD SALMON
by Barbara Waters
O salmon, my salmon
You rush upstream
Seeking space
Homing in by
An innate sense
Of place – of time
O salmon, my salmon
Your urge for mate
Meets my urge to
Fill my freezer
Who will win this day?
Who will last longer?
O salmon, my salmon
Tasty with lemon
And dill
A touch of horseradish
Your nobility reduced
To gastric pleasure
ODE TO A DEAD AND DOOMED SALMON
by Lou Lehmann
It was a dark and stormy night in a Transylvanian castle
When Dr. Frankenstein said to Igor, his vassal
“That corpse that you purloined had a defective head
So I sliced it off and decided as it bled
That you must venture forth and get a replacement
For the monster that
I’m making down in the basement”
So Igor descended to search in the village
Hoping to find another body to pillage
But alas, he found none and knew not what to do
When a peddler appeared and said “I can help you -
For I heard that you searched and no corpse did you find
But I have an alternative, though not of mankind
And it may not be just what Frankenstein might wish
But tell him to consider making his monster part fish
Because I’ve got
a big dead salmon stored in my cart
Whose head he could have because that doctor’s so smart”
He could attach it with ease to that poor headless chump
Sewing it ever so securely to his bloody neck stump”
Well, poor Igor was desperate so he purchased that head
And then told Frankenstein what the peddler had said
The good doctor screamed and ranted and raved
“ I have no human
head for the corpse that I’ve saved
Just a glassy-eyed head from a salmon now stinking
What the hell, Igor, could you have been thiniking?
But the storm was now raging, it was ever so frightening
And Frankenstein knew that he needed the lightning
Which would appear only briefly, his monster to zap
And his experiment he surely did not want to scrap
So the headless corpse they brought up from below
And upon it that salmon head they then did bestow
To a table they
strapped that thing with no feeling
And apprehensively opened the castle’s ceiling
Then the monster was struck with a lightening bolt
Surging life into its body with every volt
Part-salmon, part human, the creature then rose
Breaking its bonds, then scratching its toes
“What have you done to me?” the monster then cried
Do I have the soul of a man or a fish deep inside?
Should I be on the land or should I be in the sea?
But that’s not the worst that you have done to me
Far worse than this body, I now have no home
And I’m doomed to
be remembered in this atrocious poem.”
AN ODE TO SPAWNING BUCK SALMON
by Kersten Christianson
Oh, Buck Salmon, you mighty leaper -
king, silver, sockeye, chum and pink – tasty meat!
Anadromous being and populous ocean creeper,
finding your natal, freshwater stream is quite a feat.
You dodge the teeth of orca, the speed of sea lion,
and the crafty ruse of humans with fishing line and puppet
herring.
Transformative in nature, your return to river makes you a
new man
blindly following the hens with your flashy kype, shiny like
Orion,
almost shape shifting with strong color-change bearing.
Egg fertilization and fellow salmon-littered bank stink is all
part of the stock generating plan.
RIME OF THE ANCIENT TROLLER
by Lesley Thomas
It is an ancient
Mariner,
And she stoppeth
one of three.
“By thy long
grey locks and putrid coat
Of slime from
ten days on a boat,
Now wherefore
stopp’st thou me?”
A tipsy party on
the way
from happy hour
on the quay,
Blithe and
donned in rich array,
No thoughts of
Salmon on this day,
Landlubber jobs
far from fillet.
She holds him
with a skinny hand,
“There was a
Fish,” quoth she.
“Hold off,
unhand me, grey-haired loon!”
Eftsoons her
hand dropt she.
She pierced him
with an eagle gaze
Marked by chase
of countless days,
Of midnight sun,
and fog and haze.
“What is your
saga dire to tell?
Let me by, you
scaley hag –
The
socioeconomic role you played
Under our
eight-starred indigo flag
Of lengthy tale
no Fish is worth,
So keep it quick
and give us berth!”
“Water, water,
everywhere – “
“No, about the
Salmon, please?”
She fixed him
with that glittering eye,
His comrades
muttered, ill at ease.
Unhappy guest,
he beat his breast,
Yet cannot
choose but hear;
And thus spake
on that ancient witch,
The bright-eyed
Mariner:
“My hooks are
empty now of King,
Bottomfeeders
are the thing,
In nets made out
of plastic string,
Whilst circus
ships as big as towns
Teem with
prostitutes and clowns,
On decks the
million tourists cram
To snap a pretty
Instagram,
My troller now
quaint museum piece,
I’ll sell it
off, or maybe lease…
But an Ode to
Salmon I can sing.”
“Let me by, you
fearsome Dame!”
She held him yet
with eyes of flame.
“Or prophesy of
doom I’ll give
Fast forward
from the times we live
Two decades
hence, acidification
Prevents the
tiny shell formation
Of the foodchain
bottoms’ krill,
And thus the mighty Humpy kill.
“On DHA the
world was fed,
Until the last
Sockeye was dead.
O Paean to
Salmon I can chant,
Of poisoned waters
I can rant,
Though I see you
are a shill,
Who came to live
here post oil spill!”
“Unhand me,
Crone, I have no time,
For odes or
rants or any rime. “
“Then, Brother,
can you spare a dime?”
He went like one
that hath been stunned
By gaff hook on
the deck forlorn,
A sadder and a
wiser man,
He rose the
morrow morn.
O SALMON, MY SALMON!*
by Geoff Kirsch and Libby Bakalar
O Salmon! My Salmon! Your fateful trip is done;
Spent all your milt on every egg along your salmon run;
The end is near, your stench is clear, some would say
revolting
With hollow eyes and languid tail, mottled scales a-molting:
But O fin! fin! fin!
O king, silver, chum, pink, red,
There on the banks my Salmon lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Salmon! dead Salmon! Rise up and take my bait;
Rise up—for you the table’s set—and I must put something on
the plate;
For you briquettes and marinades—for you some cedar
planking;
For you they call, my dinner guests, hungry now from
drinking;
Here Salmon! dear Salmon!
This hook inside your head;
I’ll pass it off that at my hand
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Salmon does not answer, his hump is pale and still;
My Salmon does not feel my snag, he has no pulse nor will.
Manhood anchored safe and sound, the voyage closed and done;
From angling trip, I still return a victorious fisherman;
Relax, O self-respecting Alaskans (who wouldn’t dream of
serving spawned out salmon, not even to out-of-towners)!
I’ll just bring back the head,
For in the cooler store-bought decoy Salmon lies,
Filleted and cold and dead.
* With apologies to Walt Whitman and inspired by this past
summer’s release of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” a real dead fish if ever
there was one
LIMERICK
By Robert Jaro
I once had a girlfriend named Nellie
One day she turned up quite smelly
She ate some old fish
It was quite a dish
It was the end of poor Nellie.
RECYCLED
by Marilyn E. Wheeless
by Marilyn E. Wheeless
Seagulls screech and argue over
dead and rotting salmon, vying
for the victim's choicest sections
and bantering with stomachs full.
Ravens chortle from the tree tops,
ragged wings attest to scrapes over
what the gulls reluctantly
relinquish after gluttony.
Eagles sit in silent judgment,
droping like stones among the
crowd below, setting off a cacophony
of noisy protest but no real dispute.
Silvery salmon, mottled and bruised
by life. To
such an end, spawned-out
prey for vicious beaks and talons,
returning, ultimately, to earth.
LIFE GOES ON
by Marilyn E.
Wheeless
Seagulls cry, wheeling, flapping,
a tempo matched by
salmon flopping.
Gasping
one last breath before
seagull's beak, bone-hard, yellow
twitches flesh from
slender bodies.
Feeding generations yet unborn
from generations ending.
Spawned-out salmon,
dying. Life
goes on.
by Barbara Waters
The reds are coming
Caught by hook or by dip net
Smokers are smoking
