A BUMPY RIDE TO THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Dag T. Straumsvåg

The Codfish


Despite what marine biologists say, the codfish is not all that ravenous or tough. It doesn't devour everything that comes in its path, and it doesn't like desolate waters any more than the next fish. For thousands of years it's patrolled the seams between warm and cold ocean currents and, rather recently, showed the Europeans the way to America. The trouble is, the codfish can't remember a thing. It might swim to Labrador or Lofoten for twenty straight years, and not recall any of it. On good days, its memory lasts maybe three seconds. Say, is that a herring or a lure? When mistaken, it won't put up a fight; it won't even try to slip off the hook. It's had enough and throws in the towel. Life's just not fair. Or is it? The codfish really can't remember.

from A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse (2006, 45 pages)

"I can't think of a better antidote to boredom than reading these prose poems. If you think you're in the presence of ordinary language on ordinary subjects, read on: you'll soon be somewhere you've never been before. I love the quirky turns and swerves, the way the ordinary breaks the shackles of mundane assumptions. You'll never regard elephants the same way again. Or codfish. Or sheep. Or..."

-Jim Heynen