Forms
Themes
About the poet
John Lyons is a painter and poet, born in 1933 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. When he...
Hauling in the Seine
Hauling In The Seine
With each rhythmic grunt
the fishermen haul you in.
Spilled out on moon-soaked sand
you are sea harvest now, bewilderment
fixed in your lidless eyes,
gills sucking emptiness.
Fishermen celebrate. They blow
staccato harmonies on conches
calling the fish-tea cooks.
Like night gulls they come in a clamour,
brandishing tin-pans and calabashes.
Before the sun comes up
they will be feasting on fish-tea:
a fish broth
wid some green figs, onion, ah squeeze ah lime,
some thyme an a Scotch bonnet pepper
drop in whole fuh flavor.
Is good fuh de brain
dem ole people say.
from Cook-up In A Trini Kitchen (Peepal Tree Press, 2009), © John Lyons 2009, used by permission of the author
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