I was sitting by the big fire place
Warming my toes
Remembering
Trying to pull the memories
From a mind with little time left
My body old and broken
But still I can remember
Remember the good times in my life
Remember the bad times
Remember the loves of my life
Like Trudy
Yes I remember her
Making love on the shore of the Thames
Rising and drawing some carp in from the shallows
Smashing their heads with some sticks
Eating them
And then making love again
Or Sabina
The Sudanese Princess
We lay beside the great Nile
Making love
And then we netted some carp from the shallows
Smashed their heads
And ate them
And then made love again
Yes I was once a great man
With lovers in every corner of the world
The trade in blood diamonds
Makes for desperate times
Gundal
We lay beside the Amazon
The air so thick and hot
We made love
And then speared some carp from the slow current
Smashed their heads
And ate them
And then made love
I smiled, remembering
Thinking of life and its strange path
I thought of my lovers and of the carp I have smashed and eaten
And as I rose up on to my tired legs
And headed down to the creek
With my big wooden stick
I realized it was not the relationships in my life
Or the making of the love
That gave me great pleasure or defined me as a person
It was the smashing of the carp that did