the siren

 

🌊

"A little light is filtering from the water flowers.

Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:

They are round and flat and full of dark advice.

all these men, they sing the same- they sing of encroaching shores, 

they weep for the lost pirates and treasures; they gurn and their gums grow sore. 

each seaman the same, just the same, and each clogged the brute heart of one girl, 
their rugged manner once easily tamed, their clams once preserving their pearls.

Cold worlds shake from the oar.

The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.

A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;

row faster now men, row onward- the waves mirror chantilly glass,
each sailor falls silent upon water, till dry land he sings at last-
do you call out to the lighthouse, do you sing to the mermaid from the west?
does this Tenerife sea sweep forward, do you think you are doing your best?

Stars open among the lilies.

Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?

This is the silence of astounded souls."

and i, shipwrecked and run aground, have been mistaken from time to time; 

an ocean dweller one sailor mistook- he trade seaweed for my rosemary, my thyme.

dear sailor, the siren who called you then was a mistress the very same,
and finally you have realised she was never me,        but the stage.

sincerely, the caravan girl.