I cannot speak for everyman , nor would I dare to dream to do so, but
neither mermaid nor grasshopper hold any fears for me. I am firmly lashed to
my mast but must hear the song. I never harboured such fears that I was
aware of, mind you, I am essentially very boringly normal. I have found
neither beak nor teeth in all my wanderings, and there have been some. LOL.
Regards Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sarah Willans" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 8:39 AM
Subject: Re: New sub: Mermaiden


> This is a wonderful poem - rich and sensuous, and full of delicious
imagery.
> It's also a metaphor for the fears that all men harbour, somewhere in the
> paranoid depths of their subconscious, about all women (well, that's my
> theory, anyway). I shall come back to this one again and again.
>
> Sarah
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "grasshopper" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 10:04 PM
> Subject: New sub: Mermaiden
>
>
> >                    Mermaiden
> >
> >
> > She sits on an pearled imperial rock,
> > scaly buttocks snug against the shells.
> > Limpets lickle at her fingers, pedicure
> >
> > her tail-tips. She sighs, tastes the salt
> > on her lips, thinks of sailors, a mariner
> > with tousled chest and blue-irised Irish eyes,
> >
> > sweet matelot. a sea-dog she will leash
> > with the Hokusai whorls of her hair,
> > burnished like sunbeams on wave-curls.
> >
> > She combs her locks with honeyed words,
> > blows kisses at the lusty gulls, hears their shrieks
> > climax on a hump of landed orca.
> >
> > Her heart is brine, harder than Lot's wife,
> > baked and caked by long years on the flats
> > of water. Her eyes are liquid, like her song.
> >
> > Beware of her beauty, as cruel as the ocean,
> > as eternal as the wash of waves, the wane
> > of shore. She is in her element, you are mere
> >
> > mammal,  juicy and ungilled. A subtle mind is nothing
> > more than tissue. She will lace it on the swell
> > like marbled fat on meat. She will dissolve you
> >
> > into her queendom. You will spill guts, groin
> > and begetting into a sudden maelstrom
> > of sharp reflected stars.
> >
> >                                  grasshopper