2013 Ode to a Dead Salmon Winner!

The votes have been tallied, and congratulations go out to Kelly Robinson, winner of our 2013 Ode to a Dead Salmon contest, with "This is Just a Text to Say." Thanks to all for reading and voting in this fishy competition!

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

Vote today! Ode to a Dead Salmon 2013

Our judges have spoken, and now it's time for the public to decide which Ode to a Dead Salmon represents the best of the worst.

From the three finalists below (in reverse alpha order by author), cast your vote in the sidebar poll. Hurry - voting closes at midnight Alaska Standard Time on Monday, Aug. 19. We'll celebrate the winning entry on Aug. 22.

Here's to dead fish!

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.

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

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

2013 Entries

Newest entries show first; scroll down to view all. To enter the contest, click here. Entries must be received by Aug. 5. Finalists will be posted on Aug. 12.

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.

 

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

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.

HAIKU
by Barbara Waters

The reds are coming

Caught by hook or by dip net

Smokers are smoking

Annual "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad writing contest accepting entries July 23 - Aug. 5

Summer's in full swing, the fish are running, and you know what that means: the hugely popular "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad writing contest is back for its fourth season. Take a look at last year's finalists, sharpen your pencils and follow that smell. We want your best worst writing, submitted to runningfoxbooks@gmail.com between July 23 and August 5, 2013.

The idea for the contest, which began in 2010, came from a 49 Writers interview with Alaska's former Writer Laureate Nancy Lord, who said that in her early years of writing she realized that she needed to get beyond mining the same myths - 'odes to dead salmon,' poet John Haines once called them. This year, the good folks at 49 Writers have bequeathed the Ode to a Dead Salmon bad writing contest to us at Running Fox Books. We think it's a perfect fit. Our office is in Alaska, and we like to think we have a nose for bad writing, since it's what we've set out to conquer with a venture that aggregates quality books.

In past years, the Ode to a Dead Salmon contest has attracted bad writing from all over the world. No matter how stinky, every submission gets its day in the sun, posted here for the world to enjoy. And our rotten winners have gotten some great press, including a write-up in Alaska Magazine.
 
So it's time to do it all over again. We want your best tongue-in-cheek "Ode to a Dead Salmon" bad writing, poetry or prose, fiction or non. We'll publish all entries at our Ode to a Dead Salmon webpage so the world can read them, and we'll post the finalists here, with links from the Running Fox website and all the usual social media places. And yes, there's a prize: the winner receives a Ray Troll t-shirt of their choice. But the main goal, of course, is to have fun.

The rules:


1. We reserve the right to exclude entries deemed unfit for posting. (But if you don't receive an email confirmation of your submission, do let us know at runningfoxbooks@gmail.com.)
2. We need your real name and real email address. If you want your entry to be posted under a pseudonym or left anonymous, make that clear in your email.
3. No more than three entries per person.
4. No more than 800 words per entry (shorter is just fine with us: limerick, haiku, opening lines). 
5. Entries must be your own original work.
6. You keep the copyright, of course, but by entering you're giving us permission to post.
7. This is our contest. We make the rules (that's the beauty of blogging, folks), and the rules may change as we see fit. We'll let you know if they do.
8. We accept only Word documents or submissions embedded in the email text. Submissions MUST be single spaced, Times New Roman, with NO paragraph indentations; instead of indenting, please space between paragraphs. If the formatting is not correct, your submission will not be considered.
9. All entries must be emailed to runningfoxbooks@gmail.com by midnight on August 5, 2013. Finalists will be posted on August 12, and voting ends August 19, with official recognition of the winner on August 22..

And the winner is...

Our readers have spoken, and "One fish, two fish, red fish, more red fish" surged ahead in the final few days to win this year's Ode to a Dead Salmon contest. This fishy homage to Dr. Seuss captured the spirit of the challenge to produce clever bad writing with a distinctly Alaskan flavor, and clearly secured your votes for that reason. Congratulations to the pseudonymous Sam N. Cook, a writer we can vouch for who prefers to remain anonymous! We must also congratulate Lee Goodman for making the final three with not one but two witty entries, which were widely enjoyed.

Thank you to everyone who submitted entries, to all of you who participated in the voting, and to our judges Nancy Lord and Bill Sherwonit. And thank you, Ray Troll, for donating a signed t-shirt to our winner.

For your reading pleasure, here again is our winning entry:

One fish, two fish, red fish, more red fish

By Sam N. Cook

Cooler of blue
salmon of red
Now they’re alive,
soon they’ll be dead.

Blood lust be howlin’
under the clouds
Our neighboring netters
are boisterous and loud.

It’s not yet eleven
but that one dude is drunk
and hollering at me
to come check out his trunk

full of fish I should envy
but I cannot go near
‘cuz it’s way too early
to smell that much beer.

Veering away
toward my friends and our nets
How is it possible,
I think with regret,

twenty years an Alaskan
but first time dipnetting.
It’s a regional ritual
I’m finally getting.

An hour and a half and
we’re already done
with ten fish for the two of us.
But the fun’s just begun.

Did I mention I did not
grow up around fish,
nor gutting, nor cleaning,
and hours later I wish

we had just stopped at five.
But we’re not that bright,
so we two first-timers
were up late that night.

Would I do it again?
In a heartbeat I’m thinking,
but next time around,
I too will be drinking.

2012 Finalists - Vote Now!

The judges have decided! Here at last are the three finalists from this year's run of the best in bad prose and poetry. Thank you to everyone who took up the challenge and sent us their cleverly contrived entries - we certainly had a lot of fun reading them and hope you did too - all entries are posted below. Congratulations to our two finalists, the pseudonymous "Sam N. Cook" and Lee Goodman for entering into the spirit of the occasion so well. And thank you to our two judges, Nancy Lord and Bill Sherwonit, who graciously reprised their roles as Alaska's arbiters of tongue-in-cheek literary bad taste.

We have been unable to set up a poll link, so please email your choice to 49writers@gmail.com. All voting will be held in strictest confidence.  Results will be announced here and on the 49 Writers blog on Monday, August 13.

2012 FINALISTS

One fish, two fish, red fish, more red fish

By “Sam N. Cook”

Cooler of blue

salmon of red

Now they’re alive,

soon they’ll be dead.

Blood lust be howlin’

under the clouds

Our neighboring netters

are boisterous and loud.

It’s not yet eleven

but that one dude is drunk

and hollering at me

to come check out his trunk

full of fish I should envy

but I cannot go near

‘cuz it’s way too early

to smell that much beer.

Veering away

toward my friends and our nets

How is it possible,

I think with regret,

twenty years an Alaskan

but first time dipnetting.

It’s a regional ritual

I’m finally getting.

An hour and a half and

we’re already done

with ten fish for the two of us.

But the fun’s just begun.

Did I mention I did not

grow up around fish,

nor gutting, nor cleaning,

and hours later I wish

we had just stopped at five.

But we’re not that bright,

so we two first-timers

were up late that night.

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat I’m thinking,

but next time around,

I too will be drinking.

---

Ode to a Dead Salmon 1

By Lee Goodman

A salmon that rots in the silt

Is like Onan whose seed would soon wilt.

Onan wanted no lads,

But the fish wanted scads,

So into the silt both spilt milt.

---

Ode to a Dead Salmon 2

By Lee Goodman

I love salmon, I said with a smile,
Not knowing this fish had turned vile
So appetite whetted,
I ate what was fetid
And barfed till I only had bile.

---

Our 2012 contestants

Owed to a Dead Salmon

By “Anjha”

Here

we’re known for throwing them.

Rubber-gloved gutters in aprons,

shaved ice-packed boxes

                line the market and appear in commercials.

We are known for our dead salmon throwers.

There

where salmon die, not for novelty

or the amusement of Pike Place shoppers,

                you are known for catching them.

Rough, terrifying waters

                bastardized by television production;

endless living rooms filled with voyeurs.

Then

they used to worship them

(they remembered they swam in their veins)

                swimming upstream, red, ripe

bursting with future generations

of dead salmon.

Now

we close the runs early -

still thinking we’re singing the song.

The music plays from the gills of the salmon

                Ode to Dead Water

                Dead Earth

                Dead Air.

---

Ode to a Dead Salmon

By Mary Albanese

I snagged the great beast, it was thrilling

As he darted and dived, water spilling.

He put up a fight

But was skunked by my might

Now his corpse on my barbie is chilling.

---

One fish, two fish, red fish, more red fish

By “Sam N. Cook”

Cooler of blue

salmon of red

Now they’re alive,

soon they’ll be dead.

Blood lust be howlin’

under the clouds

Our neighboring netters

are boisterous and loud.

It’s not yet eleven

but that one dude is drunk

and hollering at me

to come check out his trunk

full of fish I should envy

but I cannot go near

‘cuz it’s way too early

to smell that much beer.

Veering away

toward my friends and our nets

How is it possible,

I think with regret,

twenty years an Alaskan

but first time dipnetting.

It’s a regional ritual

I’m finally getting.

An hour and a half and

we’re already done

with ten fish for the two of us.

But the fun’s just begun.

Did I mention I did not

grow up around fish,

nor gutting, nor cleaning,

and hours later I wish

we had just stopped at five.

But we’re not that bright,

so we two first-timers

were up late that night.

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat I’m thinking,

but next time around,

I too will be drinking.

---

Ode to a Dead Salmon

By Matt Shields

I never ode nothing to a dead salmon. That’s just dumb. First, how could you even owe something to a LIVE salmon? What, you borrowed money from it? Salmon don’t need money. What, it saved your life and you owe him big time? Right, how? You were drowning and he swam up and gave you a ride like a dolphin?

Whoever thought up this contest is either dumb or they are not thinking right. If you can’t owe something to a LIVE salmon, then how could you owe something to a DEAD salmon.

I’m trying to be a serious writer so I enter contests, cause that is the way you get noticed. And I heard that the 49^th Writers people are serious writers, so naturally I wanted to be a part of what they are doing.

No thanks. Who is going to read a story about someone owing money or their life to a salmon that’s dead?

Not me.

Unless they are trying to get you to write essentially, like the essentialists Dostoyevsky or Nietzsche. That’s another thing, you have to be well read to write. And I am. It is so frustrating not having an outlet for my talent.

No one is going to take my complaint seriously, but that is okay. You know why? Because I am going to post it on Facebook, and then all 326 of my personal close friends will realize how difficult it is to be a good writer.

Fine. You win. I need the money. Here is my entry:

“Ode to a dead salmon: Exactly one dollar and fifty-three cents for the Three Musketeers bar (including sales tax) that I lent the stinking, rotting carcass of a humpy I befriended at the bus depot… “

Aarggh!!!

I’m sorry. I just can’t do this. I do have some self-respect.

---

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Salmon?

By Lesley Thomas

Down on the soughing wild grasses

Six geologists drunk on their asses

Toast the largest manmade structure on Earth

Their own mommas sad they gave them birth

What does this have to do with fish?

If only if only it did not, we wish

Pebble oh Pebble, sighs the boss

The Sockeye slips down from the Cross

And lies a skeleton upon the shore

and washed away,  

is seen no more

A second coming not in store

Wind blows insane across the tailings

A scientist disgorges off the railings

Capitalists frolic in the deadly water

Gone is Bear and Fish, gone is Otter

Only one villager got paid

Several of the miners got laid.

---

A Portly Run of Salmon

By Dennis Lattery

A portly run of salmon, especially the lowly Pink,

That returns to our pristine rivers should give us all some pause to think.

Although the smell is gamey, especially if the river drops,

It’s a fact that nothings wasted in the scheme of nature’s crops.

We pride ourselves by thinking that waste is just to you and me;

But if you quarried Eagles, Hawks and Seagulls they would surely not agree.

The Otters, Mink, and Martin take some part of what’s behind

And the fetid flesh of parents feeds a generation of its kind.

So if you feel a stomach tightness and revulsion at the smell

Just remember it’s in the scheme of things that salmon go to hell.

---

Salmon in the Trees

By Amy Marshall

Note from author: Excerpt from a short story entitled “Salmon In The Trees” (with apologies to Amy Gulick and Ray Troll). Radiation from the Fukushima Power Plant meltdown has played havoc on the ocean’s ecosystem! Worse yet, THE SALMON HAVE RETURNED TO ALASKA! This is a B-Movie homage complete with Alaskans, Fishermen, Federal Fisheries Biologists, and Zombie Salmon!

“You’re so full of it, Ben,” Marla scoffs. She pokes a stick into the campfire. Beyond the circle of light, the river rushes by.

“Yeah,” Liz agrees. “This is the part where you scream ‘BEHIND YOU!’”

The friends laugh.

“It’s true,” Ben insists. He clicks off the flashlight he had held beneath his chin during the telling of the tale.

“Radiation from Fukushima,” chuckles Paul. “You’re a riot.”

“It is true,” Ben continues to insist. He leans forward conspiratorially. “Missing fishermen. Weird goings on. Why do you think this section of the river’s been closed?”

“Demon salmon,” Liz starts.

“Irradiated salmon,” Ben corrects her.

“Lame,” Marla snorts.

Liz rolls her eyes and scoots a little closer to Paul who smiles and drapes an arm around her.

“Zombie salmon,” Paul chuckles. He pecks at Liz’s cheek.

“And they’ve spawned.” Ben nods seriously. He gestures upstream with a toss of his head. “They’ve got the fry at the hatchery.”

“Undead baby salmon?” Paul smiles around the lip of his beer bottle. “Dude, you’re deranged.”

“You think I’d camp here if there are killer salmon?” Marla always was the blunt one.

“Aren’t you curious?” Ben’s eyes shine in the firelight. “Don’t you wonder how Bill and Michele disappeared?”

Paul’s smile fades and he lowers the bottle. “They aren’t the first to go off into the woods and not come back.” He casts a furtive glance around the campfire. “Doesn’t mean some zombie salmon ate their brains.”

“More likely a bear,” Marla offers.

Paul frowns. “Zombie bear?”

 “It’s sad,” Liz agrees. “And you’re a jerk to make up a story like that.”

Ben smiles benignly. He makes a theater of a stretch. “I’m tired.” He scratches briefly at his blond hair. “I’m gonna hit the hay.”

The silence that greets his announcement is deafening.

“You guys are no fun anymore,” Ben chuckles as he rises to his feet and turns from the fire.

****

“What’s wrong?” Paul grumbles groggily inside his sleeping bag.

Liz sighs and sits up. “I can’t sleep.”

 “C’m on, babe,” his voice is heavy with sleep. “Just cuddle. I’ll keep you safe.”

Liz fidgets. “I gotta pee.”

Paul snorts through a snore. “Don’t let the zombie salmon get you.”

Liz slaps at the top of Paul’s head.

“Ow!”

“Jerk. Be glad I didn’t aim lower.”

Outside, the moonlight spills across the river. Liz shivers as she moves away from the tents. Ben’s snore is a chainsaw. No surprise there.

Zombie salmon.

There’s nothing like a good pee in the woods. Liz hesitates, looking back toward the river.

Flick.

A solitary figure casts across the water. A ghastly white hand guides the line. Liz’s brow furrows. Her hand is flat against the trunk of a cedar. The solitary figure does not turn.

Liz glances back at the tents. She moves cautiously forward. Her throat is dry. She can feel her heart race.

“Hello?” she ventures.

Flick.

Liz chews at her lip. “Hello?”

The figure hesitates. Liz watches the fly rod falter slightly.

“Are you all right?” Liz feels herself moving toward the river, toward the moonlit figure.

“We’re fine here.” The voice is an echo.

“We?”

A rasping breath behind her raises the hairs on the back of her neck. “Like this.”

“Run!”

Paul startles from his sleep, struggles from his sleeping bag.

“Run!”

Marla and Ben scramble from their tent. Ben struggles to his feet and catches at Liz.

“Liz!” his voice is desperate.

“Run!” Liz wails.

“Oh, my God, what is it?” Marla breathes. Paul staggers from his tent and turns.

“It’s them.” His eyes widen.

The creature takes a rasping breath. “We are in the river.”

“All of us.”

The four friends turn abruptly.

The thing that was Michele leans closer. “Like this.”

---

                                                        

Ode to a Dead Salmon 1

By Lee Goodman

A salmon that rots in the silt

Is like Onan whose seed would soon wilt.

Onan wanted no lads,

But the fish wanted scads,

So into the silt both spilt milt.

---

Ode to a Dead Salmon 2

By Lee Goodman

I love salmon, I said with a smile,
Not knowing this fish had turned vile
So appetite whetted,
I ate what was fetid
And barfed till I only had bile.

---

Salmon Rapture

By Lynn Black

Elegant salmon in sweet repose,

Why does your visage offend my nose?

Olfactory buds scream a denial,

Of your sudden death without a fair trial.

Snuffed in the prime of your young salmon life,

Nature and man put an end to your strife.

Your legacy lingers to this very day,

Compounded by an odor that won't go away.

---

Stinky Pink

By Jim Thiele

Most people thought Bob was a nice guy, but he could be a real ass at times.  I don’t know if he was just thoughtless, or if he was arrogant, but he could rub you the wrong way. 

I won’t detail the event that pushed me over the edge.  In retrospect, I should have just let it go.  But my mother used to say “don’t get mad, get even”.  I’ve even said that myself.

--

We went fishing out of Whittier and stopped to take a photo of a nice little waterfall just before coming back to town.  A small run of pink salmon was in the creek and it was easy to grab a small male that had been chased into the shallows.  He was kind of beat up and kind of a runt, so I didn’t feel I was depriving the world of his offspring.  I tossed him in the freezer, guts and all.

--

Later in the summer, Bob went up to Willow to visit his niece – he had an old Harley motorcycle and it was a nice day for a ride.  He also had an old Ford F150 pickup – the kind with the half-baked crew cab with little fold up seats.  That space served mostly as a trash bin for Bob.  He would lock up his bike, but he never locked his car. 

The back of those crew cab seats is attached directly to the wall of the cab.  If you know the trick, it is really easy to pop them off.  There is a little bit of space between the cushion and the cab wall – just enough for a small pink salmon stuffed into an orange Anchorage Daily News bag. It is a tight fit, and you may have to do a little trimming, but it will fit.  If you sit in the seat you might notice a bump in the back, but nobody sits in a trash bin.

--

Unfortunately the first benefactor of this effort was Bob’s dog Bo.  I saw him tied up out in the yard – he was never tied up.  Bob said “he must have eaten something real bad…I took him to town yesterday and he had the worst farts he has ever had, and you know that dog – he has bad ones already.”

A day later I saw Bob out there washing Bo down.  He had enough Johnsons Baby Shampoo on that dog to do the preschool class.   “That damn dog musta rolled in something”, I was told.  I was glad Bo was a water dog…he actually seemed to enjoy the scrub.

A couple days later Bob was out there with his pressure washer.  He had gone to West Marine and bought something called PINE POWER –The Concentrated boat wash.  He was going over the Ford, including the floor mats.  He had a small bucket and had hit the dash and the inside of the doors.  It was kinda nice…the whole neighborhood smelled like Colorado.

---

Oncorhynchus

By Dar Joseph

Chinook, Chum, Coho, Pink, & Sockeye

Fresh water birth, ocean bound, olfactory memory, our natal streams are found

Egg, alvin, fry, parr, smolt, adult, spawning adult

Troll caught, gillnet & purse seine that’s the commercial game. Hey! sport

Coastal streams, rugged rivers, miles of rapids, waterfalls to leap.

Alaska's Kings, Dogs, Silvers, Humpys, Red, maybe white all fresh & wild

Abundance variety about, Rainbow trout

Great off the grill, baked, smoked, dried, fried, let a receipt decide,

Spawning, egg laying, fertilizing the stream then off to die in your natal stream.

---

Santiago in the Studio

By Jean Bundy

It is a gray blustery day and white caps are visible from my beach shack. OK…it’s a typical Anchorage July with my house fan whirring and two toy poodles are wrestling on a lawn across the street. I’m in my studio painting salmon imagery onto medical lab coats for a fundraiser, the new Neighborhood Health Center soon in Midtown.  Fishing is not my thing, well, only if someone invites me, which hasn’t been in ages.

I rummage through books on Alaska’s sea creatures and print some examples off Google. What would a painter/writer like me do without Wikipedia?  Lab coats aren’t flat like stretched canvas. They wriggle and bounce as I pencil on a fish and begin to mix some paint, besides I don’t know what color a salmon really is. They seem pink with grey skin when picking out a pound or two at Costco, much easier and I don’t have to hit the plastic package on the head!

I phoned my son-in-law who is dangling from a beam off his house. He’s adding a roof to a porch so my daughter’s terrier won’t get her feet wet this winter. “I don’t know,” he repeats several times, “…all I know is that they get all torn up a lot when swimming up stream.”

Realizing that salmon are more three dimensional than what a Google search delivers, visiting the local tackle shop might be a good idea. I show up on a Sunday morning, clearly when everyone was doing more than fishing the night before. Strolling down aisles and looking at all the glo-in-the-dark-hook-do-hickies and drawers of plastic-ball-thingies is kinda like looking at rows of oil pastels in an art shoppe.

“It’s ok Miss, a not too hung over clerk assures me, “artists come here all the time to make jewelry.”

“Do you think I could photograph your mounted fish?” pointing to an array on the wall, all looking like they just jumped out of water ready for a fishy  beauty pageant.

I look around for my husband who has the camera. He can operate our Sony better than me, I’m always asking him what button needs pushing. I spot him cowering behind racks of rods and reels.

“ C’mon, we don’t know anyone in the store,” I plead.  He hands me the camera as photographing stuffed fish apparently isn’t a macho thing do.  So I proceed to click away, politely sliding myself in between serious conversations about bait and hooks, “Hey lady, why don’t you catch a real fish!”

Now I’m beginning to understand why my husband remains camouflaged behind pricey foul weather gear.

Back at my studio I’m trying to merge some reddish salmon from Google along with photos of wall mounted fish from the tackle shop. I get out my 2B pencil and start sketching on the sleeve of the lab coat. Mixing up some paynes gray, I begin outlining. In order to get a purchase on the fabric, I have to slip my arm down the sleeve which causes splotches on a now not-so-clean coat that won’t stop wriggling around.  I imagine myself as Santiago, no Ernest Hemingway, no Spencer Tracy.  I wrestle with the sleeve trying to get the hook onto the beak of the fish, just right (I’m sure beak isn’t the correct word for what’s on a fish face but, hell, I’m not Ernest Hemingway either). I add white to my paynes gray and scramble for the tube of magenta and cadmium red to get some color onto the belly of my salmon. I’m grappling with hanging onto the sleeve while waves of paint continue to slap my arm.

Just then sharks appear on my work table! They approach my arm, jaws open!

“Really guys, it’s a faux fish!” I cry out.

They back off and roll onto my palette. Don’t worry Ernest, it’s only Winslow and Phylly, my two Maine Coons and not your Gulf sharks about to eat my very two dimensional fish and spoil your epic. By now blood is dripping off my worktable onto the floor. OK, it’s the cats splashing and pawing my dirty paint water.

I remove my arm from the sleeve and hang up the lab coat to see how it looks. It’s still full of splotches which need to be removed somehow, I sigh.

The sun is beginning to burn through the gray sky and the poodles across the street have been called inside.  Like Santiago-Tracy I am becalmed as I stare at where to place another salmon or add a mollusk or two for variety. I return to my workbench to cut bait, mixing more pink and gray for the second coat on the salmon, letting the splotches become the endless sea.

---

Death of a Salmon

By Carla Beam

Spawn of a Norwegian fisherman, my mother despised salmon...their smell, the slime of their skins, the scales that stuck, shimmering their presence long after the fish were fileted. She told me tales of their treachery, warning me to watch for the spiny little bones that might become lodged in my throat, causing a slow death by choking.

Her father sailed north from Seattle each summer and some winters, to harvest halibut, herring, salmon and cod. The herring he pickled; most of the rest was sold. Somehow, each season, a sufficient surplus of salmon survived, to be transformed into gelatinous masses, which were soaked in lye and served during the long, dark winters of the Depression. They made her gag.

She married a landlubber from a place with no seas. She met him in the Cascade Mountains. She thought she was safe. He bought a boat and learned to fish. Secretly, she hoped his ocean forays would be fruitless.

He loved salmon. He loved them so much, he couldn’t kill them. And so it was at age six, I became a serial salmon slayer. Hammer in hand, I’d wait, watching for the tightening line that signaled me into action. I’d smack them until they were silent. I was good at it. Too good.

Twenty years later, I made my way to Alaska. Like a fish, returning to the river of its birth, I too was connected to the North by a mission I could not escape. I came north, not to spawn and die...but to fish and kill....ah, the sweet, salty smell of revenge...I only wish my mother was here to see it.

 

---

Stupid, Stinky, Slimy

By Vicki Penwell

To the children I misled during one of the many school and summer programs I have given about salmon:

You remember the story; salmon hatch in a lake or stream, then bravely swim down stream to the ocean where they eat ocean stuff for a few years while evading orcas.  When they reach sexual maturity, they head back up stream.  After they reach fresh water, they stop eating, living on fat reserves.  Starving, they heroically dodge fish wheels, bears, and eagles.  The strongest salmon survive, their bodies gashed and bruised.  They go on to the river or lake where they hatched, build redds, and spawn, defending their redds until they die. After hatching, the off-spring eat their parents’ carcasses.  Bears, eagles and other wildlife eat the carcasses too, and the decaying flesh returns nutrients to the soil.

I created salmon life cycle games like the one where you built redds in dish pans and instead of real salmon eggs, you hid tiny glass beads.  You defended your redd by answering salmon trivia questions.  I found coloring pages to color, stories to read, and Ahtna Elders to tell about the importance of salmon to their culture.

Well, children, I apologize.  It is time for the truth.

Salmon are stupid, stinky, slimy fish, and that’s while they are alive.  Dead, they are even stinkier and slimier as you know if your dog ever rolled in one. There is nothing noble about salmon.  They don’t “think” or “decide” anything.  They are hard wired to obey biological signals that tell them to swim, eat, spawn and die.  Yes, they are important to the ecosystem but so are a lot of other things.  In fact there are people who will tell you fires are good (I’m sorry for that too but that’s another story).  Salmon don’t sacrifice themselves; that would require thought and they are stupid, incapable of thinking.  Did I mention stinky and slimy?

It is cool that salmon living it up, getting fat in the ocean, find their way back to the same river that brought them to the ocean and then back to the place they hatched.  But honestly, kids, their brains are too tiny for them to problem solve getting home.  They need clean water and clues like chemical smells and glands to make slime so swimming upstream easier.  You would never cover yourself with that stuff if you had a choice, right?  Have you ever tried to wash that stuff off your hands or clothes?

So why be upset about this Pebble Mine thing?  Salmon are important, but it would be foolish to think they are more important than Gold. Salmon are stupid, stinky and slimy and delicious but so are a lot of things.  How could that be better than Gold?  Gold is shiny, worth money and everybody wants it.  Mining Gold is a noble pursuit, requiring skill and perseverance.  Fishing is all luck, requiring only a net and very little skill. Salmon don’t bring as much happiness and aren’t worth as much cash as Gold. 

And forget wet lands.  Have you been to Alaska?  The entire state is one big marsh with more mosquitoes than a squadron of dragon flies could eat in a year.  On the North Slope oil companies have a way of dealing with mosquitoes and it would work at Pebble, too.  The boss just gives a signal, turns his back for a sec and a guy from Texas loosens a cap on some pipeline letting a hundred gallons or so of oil drain out over the tundra.  It doesn’t seem to bother the caribou one bit.  And I don’t think Gold mining would bother the salmon or bears or other animals, either.  In fact, the roads that will be built to Pebble Mine will provide easier access for animals.  Anyone who says roads bother animals has never seen all the moose near Alaska highways.  It’s too bad some of them are too dumb to move out of the way of traffic.

As for tradition, write it down.  Nobody wants to work that hard any more anyway.  And they raise salmon on farms now.  What could be more convenient? 

So, children, let the Gold company build its mine in the Bristol Bay headwaters.  Strip off the tundra, dam the waste water and put a few locals to work. That’s got to be better than taking your chances on salmon for making a living or getting something to eat.  There’s no downside to the mining.  Nothing will go wrong and even if it does, big deal.  Alaska is full of watersheds that are full of stupid, stinky, slimy salmon, watersheds that don’t have Gold.  That we know of.  Yet.

Remember?  Stupid, slimy, stinky . . .

---

Ode to the Dead Salmon

By Constance Caparas

Oh, Salmon of the Midnight Sun

I thank very much

For catching you is very fun

With net, and pole, and such

Oh, Salmon of the Midnight Sun

You taste so very good

Eating you with salt and a bun

Like everybody should!

Oh, Salmon of the Midnight Sun

You will not go to waste

For even once the season is done

We’ll eat you up with haste

---

It's Cold in Alaska!

By “NCFerretMom”

Moving to Alaska has been a life-long dream
But once you arrive things are not all that they seem;
Arrived in November with snow upon the ground
Quickly bought a bus pass so I could get around.
Rental cars each weekend so I could see the state,
Check on the chechako if I’m not home before too late!
Drove up and down the Seward Highway,
Saw eagles, moose and bear;
Found the AWCC and became a member there.
Discovered Talkeetna and Kasilof, too;
Stopped in Clam Gulch to run a dog team – that’s new!
Time passes.
Snow on the ground by Halloween
Still there in May when they crown the prom queen!
Breakup comes and I fall down;
Get up and fall back on the ground!
Baby moose on the loose, bear cub in the shrub;
Geese and ducks and sandhill cranes,
Ferry rides, small planes and trains.
So much more that I can say, better to just walk away
Or else this may start making sense – and what has past becomes present tense!


P.S.
In case you are wondering why there is no salmon in my post, it is because

I have bought a fishing license every year
and have yet to see a salmon here.
I can get it at the store or market,
but have yet to catch a king, pink or sock-it-to-me, sock-it-to-me,
sock-it-to-me, sock-it-to-me . . .