Mark Heathcote

At Dusk, As I Urged The Fish To Bite

I remember the lake light shining

like a disk as I fished for perch or pike

at dusk, as I urged the fish to bite,

bite a spoonful of shimmering bait.

I remember bats flitting and circling

like the insects, they longed to catch

and ripples left by fish that were no match

I remember Father's blunt roll-call home!

The boathouse, a sarcophagus

with its two-well-rotten doors

gaping open like malnourished jaws

awaiting Death's ferryman back,

back to those perpetual, keepnet-shores.

I remember the rolling fog rising

about the gnarled chestnut trees

billowing out into brackish red reeds

and a slice of scaly moon leaping:

That frantic-fish pulling line from my spool.

I remember the lake light shining

in the scales of a real living ghoul

plucked out of the water, fighting

a fish - that wasn't one bit preschool

Inside My Stencil Case

As long as you hold my hand
I'll be safe inside my stencil case, 
I'll not be a liability, 
I'll be quiet and submissive
as long as you guide my path
through walls that never stop squeezing, 
I'll do your bidding, swallow all your propaganda, 
and suppress my being bold
bite my own hand
and cross my ballot box.
That is, until I am feeble of mind and weak
No longer fit to serve at your table with a subordinate thought.

What Grey Has Done

I have seen what grey has done
Beyond your lounge, your wallpaper
Beyond patchwork quilts wet with tears, 
marked with mascara

I have seen what grey has done
To the sapphires in your eyes
To the sandbars in your heart that push back
exposed during low tide when you show 
you still have some remaining fight

I have seen what grey has done
Walking carefully in your own shadows, 
frightened to step out into the sun
Pacing a self imposed prison, 
a tamed malnourished animal 
still deemed dangerous, 
with a look of hunger on its face

A bookworm devouring a tragedy page by page, 
till only a hardback cover is left of its heart
A corn doll crafted from the last sheaf of barley 
before a famine came home to bite — 

a shearing knife sharpened to fleece the remaining gold in her hair.