I Want To Be Fishing Poem by Ray Andrews

Get me out of this house!
With the black and dark of each day
I long to be out there fishing
On the lake or the sea or the bay

Give me a day out on the water
I'll bait my hook with my mood
With the continued gloom of this winter
The bite of a shark would be good

I'm filled with hope to catch most any old thing
Don't make it small but quite whole
It's alright if it has large feathers
And bites like a perch on my soul

Assume not my friend a trophy
End-with the trout from the blue of the lake
With their finnicky moods and unknown food
Worms may be the sum of your take

Tourists, fishermen, a bobbing flotilla
Chasing salmon-chrome jewels of the sea-
We'll pay for the charter and throw up our food
Joy is our destiny

River salmon are wily foes
Biting from anger a fact
We'll catch them plenty with our homemade lures
Which play the music of rap

Last year's salmon a figment:
Nothing-frustrated repeated tries-
This years haul will beat them all
Finessed with sharpened up lies

If we want to try out crabbing
Saving face at the end of the day
Beware of the crabbers warning-
There's no explanation of a giant crab-
The one that got away

If we angle for a getaway
Prepare for sundry things
Frusrtation, wet clothes and smelly creatures
And the happiness they bring