Related quotes: Oh you who are shy...

Privacy

Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
There are pebbles and reeds for aquarium needs
Of eel and of pike who are bold fish;
But who gives a thought to a sheltering spot
For the sensitive soul of a goldfish?

So the poor little thing swam around in a ring,
In a globe of a crystalline crudity;
Swam round and swam round, but no refuge she found
From the public display of her nudity;
No weedy retreat for a cloister discreet,
From the eye of the mob to exempt her;
Can you wonder she paled, and her appetite failed,
Till even a fly couldn't tempt her?

I watched with dismay as she faded away;
Each day she grew slimmer and slimmer.
From an amber hat burned, to a silver she turned
Then swiftly was dimmer and dimmer.
No longer she gleamed, like a spectre she seemed,
One morning I anxiously sought her:
I only could stare - she no longer was there . . .
She'd simply dissolved in the water.

So when you behold bright fishes of gold,
In globes of immaculate purity;
Just think how they'd be more contented and free
If you gave them a little obscurity.
And you who make laws, get busy because
You can brighten he lives of untold fish,
If its sadness you note, and a measure promote
To Ensure Private Life For The Goldfish.

poem by Robert William Service
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Aquarium Fun

Have you ever seen an aquarium
With fancy fish swimming around?
Well I saw the most wonderful
Aquarium that I’ve ever found

Every color you can imagine
You’d find in a fish tank were there
Beautiful background for those fish
Not a single thing was spared

The cat fish were so enormous
You could imagine them in a pan
Fryin’ up so crispy brown
So tasty they’d never be bland

But instead we just enjoyed
Watching these fish on display
Swimming ‘round and ‘round
I once even saw them in play

I hope sometime if you haven’t
Been to an aquarium like this
Can observe their beauty as I did
These delightful and colorful fish!

poem by Marilyn Lott
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Some things that can happen with a fish

A fish that drinks like a fish, that is a fish in excess
A fish that fishes in troubled waters, that is a fish taking advantage of another fish in trouble
A fish that fishes or cuts bait, well, to be or not to be, to retreat or to attack, that is the fishy question
A fish that is neither fish nor fowl, is a fish that is neither one nor the other, lacking some convictions
A fish out of water, is a fish feeling left out, no longer in his accustomed environment

Do you have other fish to fry for now?

Is there other matter requiring my attention?

Poor fish,
the lake is finally fished out from his fishy mind.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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31

Do you have other fish to fry for now?

Is there other matter requiring my attention?

Poor fish,
the lake is finally fished out from his fishy mind.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Fish Out Of Water

I feel so out of place here
With this high society
These high fallutin people
Dont know what to make of me
I feel like a minnow in a sea of moby dicks
A small fry in a big pan
Theyre caviar -- Im fish sticks
Fish out of water
I know I dont belong
Fish out of water
Everything I do is wrong
My style of hair, the clothes I wear
The way I speak, the things I eat
The way I act, my lack of tact
Nothin seems to fit
Fish out of water
Flounderin round
Out of my element
But Im just as good as they are
Why do I feel second rate
Its like, sorry charlie,
We want only tuna with good taste
I guess you could say wal-mart
Is quite a way from guccis
Im timex, theyre rolex
Im captain ds, theyre sushi
Fish out of water
Ive had it to the gills
Fish out of water
With these yuppie-guppie frills
Yeah, Im a square in a round hole
A catfish in a goldfish bowl
A little fish with lots of soul
Out of my element
Fish out of water
Flounderin round just for the halibut
Save me, save me
S.o.s. somebody
Save me, save me
Somebody rescue me
Fish out of water
Somebody throw me in
Fish out of water
On a scale of one to ten
Im a two, perhaps a three
Compared to the big fish in the sea
Im washed ashore so save me please
Im in an awful fix
Fish out of water
Rescue me
And you better do it quick
Fish out of water
Its such a culture shock
Fish out of water
My stomachs tied in knots
Fish out of water
Fish out of water

song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Three Movements

SHAKESPEAREAN fish swam the sea, far away from land;
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand;
What are all those fish that lie gasping on the strand?

poem by William Butler Yeats
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Resignation

I'd hate to be centipede (of legs I've only two),
For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do),
The bill would come to such a lot 'twould tax an Astorbilt,
Or else I'd have to turn a Scot and caper in a kilt.

I'm jolly glad I haven't got a neck like a giraffe.
I'd want to tie it in a knot and shorten it by half.
or, as I wear my collars high, how laundry men would gloat!
And what a lot of beer I'd buy to lubricate my throat!

I'd hate to be a goldfish, snooping round a crystal globe,
A naughty little bold fish, that distains chemise of robe.
The public stare I couldn't bear, if naked as a stone,
And when my toilet I prepare, I'd rather be alone.

I'd hate to be an animal, an insect or a fish.
To be the least like bird or beast I've not the slightest wish.
It's best I find to be resigned, and stick to Nature's plan:
Content am I to live and die, just - Ordinary MAN.

poem by Robert William Service
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Brenda's Lonely Fish

I am a tiny flame of gold
That flickers in a jar
I see the world in circles

Eyes watch me from afar

But I can only swim all day

In circles round and around

Out of the glass I see the world

But cannot hear a sound

Trapped inside a goldfish bowl

I swim round and around

I can never catch my tail

Or swim into the sea

Forever watched by strangers eyes

Alone and never free

The world is waiting somewhere

In a river rushing by

Full of fishes big and small, leaping up to touch the sky

But I can only wonder as I swim around all day

Inside my shiny glassy globe

At all thoses fishes out there at play

My mother is called Brenda

She won me at a fete

She's twenty stone and five foot one

And needs to lose some weight

Because I am a tiddler she said

I'll eat that fish

I'll fry that little tiddler

He'll make a tasty dish

For what's the point of keeping

One fish inside a glass?

Without a mate he's miserable

His life span's cut by half

So I'm being humane

To ease his pain, at last

I know I'm vegetarian

But one fishy dish can pass

I'll fry him quick in olive oil

With some nice brown onion rings

On a bed of rice he'll taste real nice

And he won't feel a thing

For death it comes to all of us

But for him it's not too soon

For their's no future for a lonely fish

Trapped in a bowl in my front room.

Of course I could take him to the pond

But the cat is sure to get him

He's better of inside my gut

Then it's easy to forget him!

poem by Yvette Smith
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A Smile To Remember

we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?'

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled

poem by Charles Bukowski
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Thoughts Of A Goldfish

I am a goldfish; I am swimming around this bowl. It is getting dizzy.

A goldfish I am; It is getting dizzy. Swimming around this bowl I am.
Am I a goldfish? I am swimming around this bowl. It is getting dizzy.
It is getting dizzy, swimming around this bowl, I am a goldfish. I am.
Around this bowl I am swimming. It is getting dizzy. I am a goldfish
I am a goldfish. It is getting dizzy around this bowl, I am swimming.
I am swimming around this bowl; I am a goldfish. It is getting dizzy.
Around this bowl, it is getting dizzy. I am a goldfish; I am swimming.
I am a goldfish. It is getting dizzy. I am swimming around this bowl.
I am a goldfish. Bowl this around: it is getting dizzy. I am swimming.
I am swimming around this bowl. Am I a goldfish? It is getting dizzy.
Am I a goldfish bowl? It is getting dizzy. Am I swimming around this?
It is getting dizzy. I am a goldfish. Am I swimming around this bowl?
Am I a goldfish? Around this bowl am I swimming? It is getting dizzy.
Am I a goldfish? I am. It is getting dizzy, swimming around this bowl.
Am I a goldfish? It is getting dizzy. I am swimming around this bowl.
Am I a goldfish swimming? Around this bowl, I am. It is getting dizzy.
Am I a goldfish? It is getting dizzy. Around this bowl I am swimming.
Am I swimming? I am a goldfish around this bowl. It is getting dizzy.
Am I swimming? Is it getting dizzy? Around this bowl I am a goldfish.
It is getting dizzy. Am I swimming? Am I a goldfish around this bowl?
Am I a-swimming? I am a round goldfish. This bowl, it is getting dizzy.
This bowl: It is getting dizzy. I am a goldfish I am swimming around.
Am I a bowl? It is getting dizzy. I am a goldfish swimming around this.
It is getting dizzy. Am I a round bowl? I am this goldfish a-swimming.
I am a goldfish I am swimming around. Is this bowl getting dizzy? It is.
Is it? I am getting a goldfish. I am swimming around this dizzy bowl.
I am. I am swimming around this goldfish bowl. Dizzy it is a-getting.
I am a dizzy goldfish swimming. I am a round bowl. Is it getting this?
Is this bowl around a dizzy, swimming goldfish? I am. I am getting it.
Is this getting dizzy? Am I a round goldfish? Am I a swimming bowl?

I am a goldfish; I am swimming around this bowl. It is getting dizzy.

poem by C. Richard Miles
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Sky Skimmer

I made a wish,
Upon a fish,
Who swam through the sky.
It twinkled bright,
What a wonderful sight!
As the fish bathed up high.

It circled the moon,
Made the stars swoon,
And the fish lit up the night.
It’s tail was adorn,
With the colors of morn,
And it’s body shined like moonlight.

What was my wish,
Towards the fish?
It’s something I won’t deny.
All I wanted to see,
That would interest me,
Would be a fish swimming in sky.

poem by Micah Yates
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Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish.

quote by Graham Taylor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sparky's Inside Your Cat

My dad bought me a goldfish,
Of him I was really fond,
His jar was really far too small,
So my dad built me a pond.

I called my goldfish Sparky,
In honour of my dad,
Full of life and boisterous,
He really was quite mad.

My neighbour used to say to me,
I don't want you to fret,
But if you don't watch your goldfish,
He'll make a meal for my nice pet.

She said her cat liked real fish,
That really made me worry,
I'd have to buy a safety net,
I needed it in a hurry.

Despite all my precautions,
I felt really put upon,
For when I checked on Sparky,
I found that he had gone.

I really did my best for him,
My God how hard I tried,
Yet despite all my best efforts,
My Sparky had now died.

When My neighbour heard me crying,
She asked me what was wrong,
When I told her what had happened,
She said you must be strong.

It's what nature had intended,
The cat has got its wish,
My feline friend has won the day,
It has ate your little fish.

I said to her well such is life,
One cannot tell a lie,
Everything alive on Earth,
Including cats must die.

It was then I knew the answer,
For my pain to be relieved,
If I dug a grave for Sparky,
I'd feel that I had grieved.

When I prepared his resting place,
I put in all his toys,
My neighbor then peered over and said
Who's making all that noise.

I said I was burying Sparky,
To ease my awful pain,
I explained he'd gone to Heaven,
But one day we'd meet again.

My neighbour burst out laughing,
She said don't be so absurd,
You don't even have his last remains,
She hadn't listened to a word.

She laughingly then asked me,
Why dig a grave as big as that,
I told her the reason was simple,

‘'Sparky's Inside Your Cat''

poem by Bri Mar
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0017 The Philosophical Goldfish

Doctors’ waiting rooms.
Dentists’ waiting rooms.
Goldfish etc.

What have goldfish done,
what fishy business have they been up to
in the murky underworld of the unpoliced,
to be incarcerated in public view
of the apprehensive, the fearful,
the distressed out of mind, those bearing
all the myriad aches and pains
that flesh is heir to?

Looking up from the Horse and Hound Gazette
which I noticed I was holding upside down
my eye was caught – or did he, or she, catch mine first? -
as if it heard my thoughts about its welfare

It swam towards me, pressed its mouth against the glass
in perfect O-shape as if singing,
or perhaps sounding some universal Om
(the final consonant difficult to catch for the dry-eared)
and it seemed to wish to communicate.

I sensed it was not a cry for help (and indeed,
what help could have offered, without
a plastic bag and in view of others who still
believed me sane? No, it seemed
peaceful but chatty; even helpfully inclined.

I got up, walked discreetly as if calmly passing time
and – almost tempted to kiss the glass, but instead
simply mouthing a friendly mwaa –
and though my lip-reading isn’t all it could be,
I believe I identified this message:

‘As above, so below;
as without, so within’

Sometimes one’s view of Creation
seems to have been hitherto
singularly unimaginative

poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Young Man And The Sea

One day I sailed,
my ship out to sea,
I went for the want,
to fish and be free.

And I baited my line,
with a shriveled old thing,
my heart was the bait,
I hoped soon it would sing.

And on that very day,
I'd gotten my wish,
for teasing my heart,
was the most beautiful fish.

But it only nibbled,
and I loved that fish,
until my heart fell,
and was lost to the abyss.

The fish lost it's interest,
and then swam away,
I lost love for all else,
on that fateful day.

I still love the thing,
with this hole in my chest,
for in all of the sea,
that fish was the best.

And I still look for the fish,
or the heart that it drowned,
but I know what was lost,
cannot be found.

And so there my heart lies,
on the floor of the sea,
lost to the waves,
of my agony.

poem by Enrico Orbita
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A Match With The Moon

WEARY already, weary miles to-night
I walked for bed: and so, to get some ease,
I dogged the flying moon with similes.
And like a wisp she doubled on my sight
In ponds; and caught in tree-tops like a kite;
And in a globe of film all liquorish
Swam full-faced like a silly silver fish;—
Last like a bubble shot the welkin's height
Where my road turned, and got behind me, and sent
My wizened shadow craning round at me,
And jeered, “So, step the measure,—one two three!”
And if I faced on her, looked innocent.
But just at parting, halfway down a dell,
She kissed me for good-night. So you'll not tell.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Fishes

I do not really know
If the little fish are hungry
Even for goldfish, they are inarticulate
And their silence so disturbs me

I am ignorant of the stories
Of the fishes on my plate
Were they raised up in Poseidon nets
Or dragged out by their lower lips
To this lifeless destination

Did worms burrow
Pathways through their faces
As they gasped their last
In chemical disarray

How can I trust the souls of fish
Whose eyes I cannot see

I need to determine why
This relationship is empty
I glance into the tank
I gaze on politicians
Who with fish-eyed calculation
Play cost-benefit with the planet

I remember a time
When a fish was a quite rare thing
Caught or bred with care
And put to death in beauty.

poem by Frank Bana
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Fish Fear Fishermen

Underneath the sea inhabited the fish
That swam also with warmth and affection.
Seasons in the sea glare like rocks near a cliff,
Falling onto them may be like fishes are enemies.
Hatred of fishes carries a weight too hard,
For the fishermen rejoice at their capture
And consume the heads as well.
Hating the sea is agony, futile and wrong,
For the fish of the ocean meander in swarms
And they flock at the home they live in.
Underneath the sea is a boat of fish,
Funnelling through the portholes, and describing
Their lives in multifarious colours, wreaking havoc
And swaying with the undersea music.
The fish sway in fear of music, and men - Fishermen.

poem by Naveed Akram
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Silent Swimmer

When solemn evening faded in
In this new neighbourhood,
The Bengal tiger waded in,
As silent as he could.
Amid the water, still quite warm,
His head was sailing high.
The water swirled around his form
As he swam slowly by...

The Bengal tiger all alone
Must find food by himself,
Preserving still that heart of stone
With wisdom, guile and stealth...
The secret swimmer swam that day,
Starvation deep inside...
For hunger never fades away
Till food has been supplied...

His eyes were seeking food to eat,
So silence was his friend,
For in the hunt he must compete
And on his skills depend.
No fish must scatter in alarm,
No bird must fly or flee...
No nearby creatures sense the harm
Of what was meant to be...

poem by Denis Martindale
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Secret Swimmer

The Bengal tiger all alone
Must find food by himself,
Preserving still that heart of stone
With wisdom, guile and stealth.
The secret swimmer swam that day,
Starvation deep inside.
For hunger never fades away
Till food has been supplied.

His eyes were seeking food to eat,
So silence was his friend,
For in the hunt he must compete
And on his skills depend.
No fish must scatter in alarm,
No bird must fly or flee.
No nearby creature sense the harm
Of what was meant to be.