Dear James.
Thanks for your kind comments. I'd be interested to read your poem if you
can  b/c it to me, or post it to the list ?
In answer to your specific points, the wane of shore, simply refers to the
way the sea is continuously eroding the coastline.
For me the last stanza is vital because the poem is about the attraction and
danger of lust etc. I wanted to write a poem about a mermaid that included a
sexual climax.
Kind regards,
      grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Bell" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Mermaiden


> Hi Grassy,
> I did a poem about a mermaid from a painting by John William Waterhouse, a
> lovely Pre-Raphaelite picture. This poem has these qualities. You are
quite
> precise in what you say. Two comments. I think you could leave out the
last
> stanza as its the old telling us too much that we don't need to know bit.
S6
> "the wane of shore" doesn't seem to make much sense to me, or maybe I'm
just
> being thick. A nice bit of imagination here though. Coz they don't exist,
do
> they?
>
>
>
> bw
> James
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: New sub: Mermaiden
> >Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 22:04:34 +0100
> >
> >                    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
>
>
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