Daily Diary, Day 796:
Some background on why I chose this poem. I am currently listening to a Vera Stanhope audiobook by Anne Cleeves, called The Rising Tide. This morning, the chapter was set on the Sunday after the time change in November, which by coincidence was today. The scene was a group of 60 something characters (whose friend had been murdered) jumping a cold bay to celebrate their friend (who did this very reunion). Cleeves gave a vivid description of jumping into the freezing water. Then, when I got home, I was looking for a poem by my dad to put up today. I searched for a poem with the word dance in it, thinking that after the angry poem last week, it might be nice to find something more cheerful. The second poem that showed up is this one. And while not particularly cheerful, it was so much like the scene in the audiobook, that I had to use it. Talk about coincidences!!!!
DECOY
There must be some reason
why I am here
walking into the liquid ice
of Catfish Bay
You are no friend of mine
stroking so brashly
laughing and splashing,
"jump in," you say.
These words of pure malice
catch in your cold throat.
No one should be out here
without a row boat.
Me, dive in this water
like the Titanic danced
to her cold demise
slashed to the quick
Fiend from the ice of hell
up to your clavicle
feigning and ecstasy
while you are able.
Slashed in my peaked girth
too cold to falter
my blood will fail to ooze
in this cold water.
Turn now your Judas face
over your shoulder.
Crab then your sidewise crawl
in geriatric pace.
Whoop loud your frozen war-
cry of traitor.
Laugh, cruel people laugh
at pain of any kind.
Watch spineless fish of me
grab for the bait,
leap o'er the lurking stones
grasping my fate.
—Joseph Locke