This is a poem from a decade ago, which came to mind recently as we got some goldfish. Gladly, they’re a lot happier and well equipped than the one which prompted this dark-humoured poem. Please don’t read too much into it! Here it is, unedited from my younger self.
There is no greater fear than this:
the fish of the bowl of golden fear.
I lie and watch distorted man
as I contemplate my life in here.
Then all asplash my green world’s gone;
I’m found in a bleak white arena.
Then another hubbub and I’m sent right back
to familiar home somehow cleaner…
In a round of odd sound and fear of here
there’s little to do but cry;
four lifetimes per minute yet still I am bored,
and without thumbs a noose I can’t tie.
Joe Spring writes 