The Lake - by Roger McGough
Summary: This poem by Roger McGough is about a dead lake. There are no fish in it, birds do not nest there and people avoid it. But, in fact, there are things living under the water: pigs. They love their disgusting underwater habitat, full of the junk and trash that people have thrown in it. The pigs eat everything. But they are still hungry. Some nights they come to the surface of the water and look at the houses near the lake. They are thinking how nice it would be to eat human flesh.
The Lake
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For years there have been no fish in the lake.People hurrying through the park avoid it
like the plague. Birds steer clear
and the sedge of course has withered.
Trees lean away from it,
and at night it reflects, not the moon,
but the blackness of its own depths.
There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.
Underwater pigs glide between reefs of coral debris.
They love it here. They breed and multiply
in sties hollowed out of the mud
and lined with mattresses and bedsprings.
They live on dead fish and rotting things,
drowned pets, plastic and assorted excreta.
Rusty cans they like the best.
Holding them in webbed trotters
their teeth tear easily through the tin,
and poking in a snout, they noisily suck out
the putrid matter within.
There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.
For on certain evenings after dark
shoals of pigs surface
and look out at those houses near the park.
Where, in bathrooms,
children feed stale bread to plastic ducks,
and in attics,
toy yachts have long since run aground.
Where, in living-rooms,
anglers dangle their lines on patterned carpets,
and bemoan the fate of the ones that got away.
Down on the lake, piggy eyes glisten.
They have acquired a taste for flesh.
They are licking their lips. Listen .. .
Listen to the poem:
Glossary
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