Reading of the poem, "The Night Fisherman", from the book launch event for Still, the Sky at the Red Room in New York City. June 2022. Written and read by Tom Pearson. Music composed and performed by Sean Hagerty.

The Night Fishermen

Before he dons the fins and gills he will need

To ride the horses of the hurricane, he holds his

Breath to listen through fog on nights that pass

Along Neptune’s shore.

On the back porch of recent memory, a

Tiny boat rests in camouflage, far from the

Bountiful water and the company

Of sturdy fathers.

It waits for a man who is sleeping to patch

A broken rib in its body as poles lean long

Against a fence, fashioned for gigs that now

Defend a fortress.

The young boy remembers the itch and rash

From the unfinished handles and how the man

Never noticed the thread shards because his own

Hide had calloused over.

The boy is waiting, too, for the man to wake,

To go again into the mudmurky creeks of

Sidewinding waterways to places he finds

Only in the dark—

On moonless nights, past phantom fish who follow

Lantern’s glow, off the bow and shoreside,

Their migrating eyes look up from sandy beds,

Leeward, silent guides

With permission to seek out the world of men

And the land of boyhood remembered, whisper

Secrets to him and to him again, from the

Silent world below—

That he might share something of who he is or

Who he was or who he might never become,

Silhouettes in conversation across

The years of silence.

In confession to the starboard realm, which

Requires sacrifice of sleep, they are now

Granted clairaudience below the quilt of

Sky spackle on black—

A canvas where marsh birds witness the voices

That carry ’cross tides, his response between two

Worlds with something left, too, for a boy to tell

And a man to hear—

Some distance beyond the dark, between prow and

Stern to echo back something of what he has

Learned, a collection of collagen and salt

Saved for this night.

Poling in the blackness, they stir the predawn

Waters with a remedy for the years ahead,

A tale told not as father to child, but as

Children to themselves.

Reading of the poem, "Story Stealers", from the Book Launch event for Still, the Sky at the Red Room in New York City. June 2022. Written and read by Tom Pearson. Music composed and performed by Sean Hagerty.

Story Stealers

He comes and waits, Brother of Twilight,

Sibling story stealer, his figure molten

By nightfall, the song he gives, the binder of

Our inheritance—

An inscription whose repetition makes me

Listen for a god yet to ’waken, his house

Flooded, water we ride ’round the room.

A vessel unmoored

Sails away on cloudy skies, his face moonlit,

To dream together before the house empties.

He sings to those that can hear, low and broken,

Anchored to marble.

Falling, we make part of the routine, landing,

Good enough for fighting, comedy ours to

Keep, this performance, our warm-up, vamping

For a tardy muse.

Charlatans arrive from the lake country, a

Magician, with his silks and fire takers,

There to play, swindle, and make merry after

Our fantasy failed.

Together we dance and make light these short-

Comings. In daylight, harder to see thieves or

Warnings of red tide. At night, sirens call out

Through open casements—

Whispering ill-advice, of truth traveling

At a distance some lonely road up ahead,

For fear of those inscribing their lives at this

Bench with carving knives.

As the night wears on, a companion at his

Side, he gets older for tomorrow’s journey,

Absorbs all the pigment and light now leached from

Portraits on the wall—

Picks up his cane and hobbles away

Satisfied, his vessel at full speed across

Dawn’s wet sky, paints his memories of evening

There in stolen hues.

Sister of the Deep reflects in watercolor

His efforts up above, working as I sleep,

By safety of night, knowing each in its time

Until morning—

Wake then to what has been stolen by thieves in

The night, under my breath at rest, listening

To my dreams, a family of shape shifters, my sibling

Story stealers.

“The Night Fishermen” & “Story Stealers” from Still, the Sky, Ransom Poet Publishers

The Night Fishermen & Story Stealers

The Night Fishermen

Story Stealers