Anis Mojgani - The Fisherman lyrics

The fisherman throws his nets At night, when he eats, he sits alone His plate round as the moon He lights one candle on his table He cuts the fish with his fork and his knife Peeling back its skin like a bed sheet Most mornings he wakes before the sun For the fish, they don't sleep long On some nights, when he's been drinking heavily He goes down to the rocks and he reads to the fish He reads to them poems, poems from books Poems about the human condition, about the muscles inside of him That question and quiver and shiver in sleep Bottle in one hand, book in the other Books clutching poems like they were their mother Too afraid to let their children out into the soft fear of the electric night And he was the wild one to show them this world His mother will never hold him like that again, he thinks I'm too big Book in one hand, bottle in the other While the storms flock behind him like gathering ballooning corpses He screams these poems, screaming out the words Like they were teeth he no longer needed or cared for He slurs his screams like a drunk preacher cutting a rope Picking up poems like they were stones to fling at the foot of God's throne Hurling word, after word, after word Waiting for some door in some black cloud, but nothing happens The rain falls, the waves swing, and the fish sleep And awake, and sleep, and awake, and again and again In the rocking of the ocean He stands above them like a Noah surrounded by bucket after overflowing bucket And all he has left to catch this wet lightning is this open mouth So he reads to them He reads to them about things that none of them will ever see About flowers opening About birds as large as cliffs, holding heroes between their silver wings Carrying these warriors into the open grace of the gods And a mighty providence this fisherman stands inside of Their shields and shoulders polished hard enough to blind the sun right back He empties himself and the waves swing He goes home, falls into bed, sleeps all the next day Night comes through his window like a dream, like a fever Like a mother to hold him close to her He wakes inside of her arms, goes to his kitchen Lights his candle, cooks his audience And peels back its skin like a bed sheet before crawling inside