The Kronosaurus was a big fish,
Saw its 100 million year old bones
Hanging stiff as collars in Harvard
Natural History Museum. But I was supple,
Still swaying, skin soaked with sun
And sea salt, fingernails smelling like
The blood of sport fish and the rot of bait.
Point Judith Jetty
Crash and spray of high-tide
Distant, billowing sails, silently escaping harbor
Green, red, blink, blink, blink
Mouthful of IPA, lips salty
Squid on a circle-hook
Autumn star patterns and a waxing gibbous moon
Light house spying
White-into-sea-glisten, whoosh…whoosh…whoosh
We caught a three foot eel at one in the morning
The Kronosaurus was a really big fish!
Each of its 40 odd teeth measured 10cm and resembled
Conical spear-tipped arrow heads. Its bones were found
In the wastelands of Queensland, where it’s as dry
As the smile-less straw-men of Harvard Square
Who walk by like human deserts, each parched and barren
Expression thirsty, each personality an arid island. But I
Was still reeling, the drag of my mind clicking
Click…click…click…clickclickclickclickclickclickclick
The love of life pulling, testing my taunt line.
Charlestown Breach-way
Casting into the rip, letting the current
Take our scud 200yds out into the deep sea
Where the blue fish waited
Primed with leader shredding, arrow-head teeth
Open bail, fingers feeding out the mono-filament
Feel him hit and take off
“Set da Gaddamn hook like fa’ fackn’ times!
Now ya feel ‘em, dat bastad of a whore’s mother!
Hook ‘em good an drag in dat blasted son-of-a-bitch!”
Ocean spraying off the point into my face
Rocks slick with slime and fish guts
Like sweat and blood on a UFC fight mat
Saw him jumping way out there in the chop
Pull, reelreelreelreel, pull, reelreelreelreel, pull
Guide him in, grappling hook through his side
Grab his gills and feel all fourteen of his pounds
Watch him puke up a handful of shiners
Give him to the Guatemalans who will boil him in milk
To the West the sunset against propped up poll tips
Melts into a seemingly forever twilight
To the East Block Island, where tonight they are catching
Shark, gleams like stars against the inky Atlantic horizon
I bet the Kronosaurus was a terrifying beast of a bitch
Its tail alone the size of a passenger plane
Could turn a boat into toothpicks with a single swipe.
It was the ultimate prey-er , nothing near tame about it
Unlike the plaid patterned civility of Cambridge
Where the surface of things matter most,
Where image is the fittest trait striving to carry the species,
Where style castrates any sort of energetic pulse.
Where as the Kronosaurus would simply eat you.
But it’s strung-up behind glass, leaving us only
A nasty, toothy smile, and a wink through hollow eyes.
Poem: "Rhode Island" by James Gagnon
Silkscreens: "what once was" and "photosynthesis" by Dan McCarthy
