In a message dated 04/05/2003 8:59:36 AM Central Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< This poem is more about exploring a metaphor and creating an atmosphere
than
 anything else. I am not trying to 'say' anything to the reader, but to
 communicate a part of my imagination. So far as I had a conscious intention
 about this piece, it was about trying to create a poetic experience that
 would give pleasure to a reader rather than about making any statement.
 I would be interested to know what others think about what a poem 'says'.
 Kind regards,
    grasshopper >>  Personally, and this may just be me, I do prefer poems
that seem to have a stronger point than just creating an atmosphere, although
I have enjoyed many that did just this.  Still, I expect it to be a very
vivid presentation.  For me, and this is my opinion, your poem "Mermaiden"
did not work.  The climax trick was not enough nor the  attempted evocation
of lust.  Poetry uses fewer words indeed; that is one way it differs from
prose.
> > >                    Mermaiden
> > >
> > >
> > > She sits on an pearled imperial rock,   should be "a" pearled rock
> > > scaly buttocks snug against the shells.
> > > Limpets lickle at her fingers, pedicure (lickle?)
> > >
> > > her tail-tips. She sighs, tastes the salt   tail-tips? tail-fins would
work
> > > on her lips, thinks of sailors, a mariner
> > > with tousled chest and blue-irised Irish eyes,  tried to say tongue
twister out loud and that is what it was "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.  Why not just "burnished sun?
> > >
> > > She combs her locks with honeyed words,  a metaphor that doesn't stick
here
> > > blows kisses at the lusty gulls, hears their shrieks
> > > climax on a hump of landed orca.  Hmmmm.  Shrieks climax on a hump.   I
wonder what those gulls are doing?
> > >
> > > 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.    Excellent stanza
> > >
> > > Beware of her beauty, as cruel as the ocean,  Beware of her beauty,
cruel as the ocean is cliche as far as I am concerned.
> > > 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.  Not sexy at all.  Sounds like the fish is
going to eat the man.  If you said you will spill sperm it might work.

I am sorry to be so honest, Grassy, but the whole poem just left me cold.  Sue