The Catfish King

[Written in June 2016 and submitted to that year's Maria W. Faust sonnet contest.]

Gray catfish, you who probe the waters deep
With barbels flung across the silted floor
What morsels do you find? What tastes sublime
Delight your gustatory sense, and bring
You memories fond of great repasts of slime?

The muck wherein a sullen worm may sleep
May carry hints of shrimp, of albacore,
And echo days, when in your piscine prime,
None dared to challenge you, a mighty king,
Who ruled a watery empire maritime.

Yet empires fall to dust, and you, once king,
Are now as Lear, besmirched with mud and grime;
A lunatic, who once made choirs sing,
Who now meanders, lost, at dinnertime.