The fishermen

by John Smallshaw
(London)

On the left side of due diligence
by the lake that's called
impermanence,
is the one they call,
His Eminence,
and he stands
alone in ignorance.

The bishops look much finer with
their bibles bound in
China and feet soled in the
markets of God forsaken
foreign places.

Faces look towards him
and the penitent adore him.
but a score or more would take him
to the lake and then
desert him.

And on the cold fields of a Calvary
where the saints survive,
it bothered me,
that the only thing that I could see
were the bishops in their finery.