The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 11/21/06)

[RetroLounge]

Mermaid

Could she, she wonders
sneak down to the breakers
and slip back in,
just for a couple of hours,
one night with a moon,
in May or September,
the first or last warm.
"Awkward," she thinks,
"Awful. You'd have to flop
down to the wave line,
painfully bruised, dirty,
exhausted."

It is an old story, and wrong.
Wrongly told. You don't need
to become mute or sell your soul
to a sea hag as Disney or Andersen
would have it. Nothing that dramatic.
You just see him in the ship
and know.

You just give up
in that moment
what you were,
which is gone
already in any case,
for what you are,
which becomes painfully
obvious.

And if he feels it too
and you build a life
around the change,
it might be easier
or not.
Finding yourself alone
at least you learn to walk
without the pain of knowing
he watched you fall
and fall
and fall

But some nights
when the frogs come
to life again
or just before the whipoorwills
leave
she tastes for a minute
the sharp dark brine
and thinks
"maybe just for a while,
maybe this time."

Anne Agnes Colwell

***************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[wildhorses]

1. transformation--

this makes me homesick for the ocean :hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Good morning, my dear Retro...

Oh, I like this! Very nice...the view from the mermaid's pov...

Thanks, sweetie........ :hug:

I feel her ambivalence so clearly!

BTW...you should check out my newest story in the Writer's Forum...

If you haven't yet.........

[wildhorses]

3. this poem reminded me of your short story--

between the two of you--I am really getting homesick for the beach, must plan a trip soon :hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. My dear wildhorses!

Aw, sweetie! Get to the beach whenever you can........

But look out for squalls, sweetie!

I hadn't even thought about the connection between Retro's poem, and my story...

Thank you for pointing it out to me!

:hug:

[RetroLounge]

5. Your story

I'm going to read it over lunch...

:hi:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. My dear Retro...

Thanks! I've already made changes, but they aren't reflected in this posted version...

If you want to see the newer one, PM me, and I'll send it on...

Hope you like it!

:hi:

[BarenakedLady]

4. *sigh*

You just give up
in that moment
what you were,
which is gone
already in any case,
for what you are,
which becomes painfully
obvious.


Damn it, you always pick the poems that make me cry. :cry:

[miss_american_pie]

8. ...

:hug:

You know I know. PM if you need to.

[reyd reid reed]

9. Oh, this is beautiful, RL...

I love the wistful feeling of it...wanting to recapture the past without giving up the now -- 'just for a while'.

Gorgeous.

Thank you.

:loveya:

[MoseyWalker]

10. me (sorry)

We were driving all day

from here to there and other everywheres
and were getting a little tired, and maybe a little
sad
in all of the places we went
we saw what we wanted to see
and we just kept on driving
no one anywhere looked at us
as though they thought
we were happy
we thought - are they happy?
we just kept on driving
getting to the point where we paused
and gazed
at each other
tiredly
we were happy
and we kept on driving
we kept on driving
we will be driving all day
tomorrow

[wildhorses]

11. thanks for sharing that--are you the one that started the

homegrown poets thread? :shrug: :hi: