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Goldfish
Goldfish
Copyright © March 28, 2021 by Douglas W. Jerving.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author, except
as provided by USA copyright law.
I am still the ten year old
Who bought goldfish at the dime store
Put them into a ten-inch bowl
Never a thought they might grow up
Conquering the saltless sea
Like some overgrown poetry
Pretends that it is prophesy.
But prophet if I must be
Despite my disdain for the call
Still just a common poet burned,
Words lost in eternal fire
While still the soul is saved
After much glancing off the glass
Wondering what is beyond it.
But the prophet, what did he!
Beyond the belly of maternity
That brought our Savior to us;
That he bespoke mille-anums
Late from early against hope
Of some new century opposed
The extra-sensors’ ship
Of fools! Of tools! Of mules every one.
I will not stop deriding these
Ass lovers taken by the ears
And taken into town like Jesus
Before the adoring crucifiers
Laid down their fronds but not
Their crowns thrown down to Caesar
And his priesthood of Jerusalem.
That really is all John’s Apocalypse
Is all about. It is just fish.
Fillet us how you like! But kept,
We never will get bigger than your pet,
No help to you in any way.
Fish are either food or friends or so
My pet store specialist would say.
We cannot grow beyond confines
Of the god-damned tank, but within
Ourselves we still get larger
To the shorter periods of our own lives.
Thirty-six cents. Maybe more
Or less depending on inflation
Is all a human life, or goldfish’s worth
Since earth is all we measure.
If heaven, hell and earth
Comingle for the treasure
That dead one in the toilet flush
Might equal the king’s station
And in heaven God’s own floor.
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Doug Jerving is the publisher of the NewEdisonGazette.com. You may contact him at
djerving@newedisongazette.com.
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