Like a freak wave it’s upon you the squall
of sharp horneted gulls, their taloned beaks
piercing the threshing sea, hungry for fish
hunted below by big-muscled kahawai.
In the chaos of feeding, slippery squid
hacked on board, brown guts dripping
through fingers fumbling with line and hook,
desperate to cast into the seething tumult
of nature’s random selection, vaulted over
by the high dome of the fisherman’s supreme
world, that he’s abandoned, alive and heaving
to nearest death, caught in Neptune’s ancient net.
– from new collection Big Love Songs. Contact Vaughan to order.
Write Up North 