Merman

The wind crept in from the southern gulf

And it rustled through the trees,

As clouds flew over, covered the sun

In some vast conspiracy,

The light was dimmed to an eerie gloom

And the wind began to squall,

Whipping the crests of the breakers up

The length of the Great Seawall.

 

A single cottage sat at the shore

And it showed a feeble light,

Where Mary D’Arcy sat in the gloom

To peer, in a sudden fright,

For a man rose slowly, out of the sea

His body covered in scales,

And roared like a monster from the deep

Cast up by the winter gales.

 

‘Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!’

He roared, as he reached the shore,

His eyes were dead in a fish’s head

‘Come out for your just reward!’

But Mary’s face in the window, lit

By a single candle there,

Was pale and white in her sudden fright,

She could only sit and stare!

 

The wind began to shriek at the eaves,

The waves crashed over the wall,

And sudden debris littered the beach

That had been so clean before,

Then lightning arced from the surly cloud

And thunder rattled the pane,

Of the glass in the cottage window there,

And then it began to rain.

 

The size of the rolling breakers grew

And crashed, white foam in their fall,

They vomited up an oil slick

That stuck like glue to the wall,

‘You think you can dump your slime on me,’

He roared, and stood in the foam,

‘You think that you have a bottomless sea,

That bottomless sea’s my home!’

 

The water lapped at the cottage door,

The debris swirled at the rip,

‘I’m giving you back your junk for free

And the wrecks of your sunken ships!

See how you cope with the slime and filth

That you dump on the ocean floor…’

But Mary D’Arcy tightened her lips

And opened the cottage door!

 

‘Why do you spend your rage on me

When the world out there’s to blame?

I’m just a single, innocent soul

On this beach you thought to claim!’

‘For every time you empty your sink

With grease, and bleach, your drain

Runs out to the pristine water’s edge -

You’re one, but you’re all the same!’

 

The oil poured in, and over the floor,

Dead birds were caught in the slime,

And fish that gasped at their final breath

Lay strewn at the shore’s define,

The Merman turned, walked back to the sea

‘I’m putting you to the test!

You’ve seen what your future shores may be,

You’d better go tell the rest!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[.]

David, this is probably my favorite work by you. I love the message of this poem, and how it displays the grotesque nature which is humanity, and how mother nature sometimes likes to remind us how small we are. I also live by the ocean in New Jersey my whole life, so the sea us a part of me. Well penned , my fellow bard.

-Cord

[Clayton Bardwell]

The Merman turned, walked back to the sea
‘I’m putting you to the test!
You’ve seen what your future shores may be,
You’d better go tell the rest!’

That means you...and me!

[Marie]

A complete turnaround. A merman instead of a mermaid, taking back the sea. A good lesson to be learned.

[Adam M. Snow]

Wonderful, truly wonderful