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sleeping with fishes
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bridging poems
Achilles, bronze‑bright in wrath,
grips Lycaon by the hair—
no burial mound, no pyre,
only the river’s cold embrace.
The warrior’s voice is iron:
you will drift where scales glimmer,
your name dissolved in currents,
your body a banquet for the deep.
No epic clash of gods,
but a quiet metaphor in print—
to “sleep with the fishes”
was to vanish beneath the tide,
a genteel turn of speech
for death’s unmarked descent.
A vest, heavy with a dead fish,
laid upon the table like a verdict.
No words needed—
the family understands:
a man has been silenced,
his body consigned to the harbour’s dark.
Cinema’s lens fixes the phrase forever,
a code whispered in smoke‑filled rooms,
a warning carried by waves.
From Homer’s river to Victorian ink,
to Coppola’s shadowed screen,
the phrase has swum through centuries—
a metaphor reborn each time,
its meaning unchanged:
death beneath the water,
a life extinguished,
a story told in currents.
.
Well done! I enjoyed..
Well done! I enjoyed reading this very much. If I may add
Joe was a man who wished to sleep with fish
Loved the way they looked, one look, got hooked
Go anywhere to meet 'em, didn't work out? He'd eat 'em
After three days they'd be gone, no longer fresh, he
Should know his fish, his name? Joe Pesci
Yup, Spanish pescado or pesce
Yup, Spanish pescado or pesce and English Pisces
here is poetry that doesn't always conform
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