Fish for Emily

 

Why would you doubt your brilliance?

O you don’t, I don’t, they don’t,

but have I seen the sharp edges

of letters strike everyone though

at some point or curve or slash, dash.

 

But you know, fish chase anything shiny,

there is an ocean chasing after everyone.

If some were any brighter or elaborate

there would be flashing caution signals.

 

But not me, if I were a fish, it would be

a dowdy dull sole ruffled beneath the sand

hiding from the world around me.

Reviews

[Clockwork]

Self doubt seems to be a natural element of being a writer. We absorb the world and question everything constantly. Sometimes that shakes the foundation of our lives, which makes us question our brilliance.

I really like your line about the ocean chasing after everyone. You've enclosed the bright neon in the glass tubes of your writing and made a caution sign for each of us. I love that line of yours and the perspective you brought to this poem.

[fireblossom]

That does it! I love your writing. Original (as original as one can get after a trillion words have gone before us). Your voice is pleasing and your point of view refreshing. The tugging I feel is the hook in my throat.

All the best

Jan

[J. A. Svercek]

This is pretty amazing. I'm a sucker for extended metaphor, what can I say. Seriously, I wish I could come up with something more intelligent to say right now, but regardless:
thanks for writing.

J.

[An Open Venue]

I don't know Emile and I don't know you but I think eyes popping out of the sand are intriguing; I find critics boring and full of themselves; and of course, jealously chasing anything shiny.

:-)
Ven

[Donald Meikle]

The best tasting fish I ever ate was sole. To watch it curl from freshness in a hot buttered pan, then lay it between two slices of fresh hot buttered bread, And the joy of watching the rod tip quiver in tremulous anticipation. Hell even Schlitz tastes good at a time like that.

[Samuel Dickens]

Perhaps there's a story behind the writing of this? I'm just guessing. It is an interesting and new angle you present of inspiration and the social aspects of it. I don't know you, but I know Emily, so if she says you're no sole in the sand, it must be true. Fish certainly do chase shiny things, don't they? If it weren't true, my dinner plate might have held spam on numerous occasions.

[Ed Hart]

well, as long as we're all being humble here, let me say that i would love to sit and hold hands with you two girls and comment about how great you are at writing poems and making tea and how much we enjoy the wonderful poets...say, would you pass another cookie...

[Emily B]

but you are so much brighter than I am. . . how often do I find myself grabbing onto the tails of your brightly colored balloon. . . stealing along for a ride on whatever creative gust you've mustered. You capture light and shadow in your words where I only imagine it might have been.

The sad truth is if it weren't for the brilliant writers here in the cafe, for the stimulus they provide, in thought and word, I might never write anything at all. I am a sponge. Absorbing and tendering back the words I find.

And you, are anything but a dowdy lurker in the deep. Your colors are divine.