Soul's Quest Poem by Oleg Vorobyov

I want to share a dream with you,
a true one, by a daemon shaped.
I had it on a dreamer's lease
two velvet-padded nights ago.
I want to share a dream with you,
nor sell it like in a Persian tale.
So, come to my quaint dreamtime shop
and have it, gratis, takeaway!

Now, here it is:

We walked along the waterfront
and headed for the mooring place,
me, and some two nondescript pals.
(it was daytime, an early spring)
A skipper in a moleskin aboard
a petty pundit fishing skiff
accosted us as we trod past.
He welcomed us to try the main,
perhaps, occasionally, fish.
We did assent embarking her
and swam beyond the purple seas!
See-saw-like, undulating sea
swung us, tossed us, affronted us!
(as any dream, mine's got blind spots)
I don't remember how we caught
two fish: one weighty, black and smooth
rapacious look, like a porpoise;
another not that long but lean,
like a corrugated silvery pike.
We trawled them both on the line.
They, neither dead and nor alive
beat their oscillating bulks
against the stupefying board!
The skipper said: Let's homeward!
There we'll find a cozy bight
and lay hands on the restive catch!
So, duly we made to a nook,
at a stone's throw from the shore,
the hull being lapped by the foamy tide.
Whatever we tried to finish it,
(the fish still tethered, water-washed)
the bigger haul survived our blows!
The skipper cut the line and off,
an offspring of deep seas thus made,
that damned cartilaginous freak!
-The other's yours! - the skipper barked
and handed me a lethal sting,
the rugged steel of the harpoon!
(was I remorseful, pitiful
while dealing that life-rending lunge? -
I now can hardly recollect..)
My coup-de-grace drove home all right,
just in the spot where the opaque head
with the languid sinuous body met!
I sank the sting deep in the flesh
and heard it crunch and saw the blood
tinge the effusive, murky wave…

My friend, a copy of my dream,
a poor verbal fantasy,
smacks of a screwball poesy…
However, tis my shared hoard,
a true imagining, nor fraud!
What's killing of the fish entails,
what implications, tricky trails
for me? - Let dream-diviners test!
Tis just a dream, my soul's quest…