Mer Moon

Short Stories

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
—TS Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

Her voice is like a soothing wave:
She calls to every doomed desire.
And such a sweet and tempting grave
Awaits past passion: lethe*, retire.

This is her song.

Read me aloud.

Read me aloud and hear in me the sea
Blown back, not unlike that fool Prufrock song.
A fool, indeed. The poet lived too long:
He never saw a siren: guaranteed.

At night, the pier is empty: fishermen
Have need of early mornings, so the space
Is quiet, perfect for midnight escapes,
And far enough from home that I begin

At last to soften underneath the moon,
Enough to cross the sea and break the night
With Sirens’ own adjacency to flight
And, liminal, between two realms commune.

This wonder-space cannot last long, alas:
The moon’s descent reminds me tasks await
Like songs and luring sailors to their fates
(My flight is flying, so to speak!) At last,

I’ll settle with my lyre upon the pier.
I know you, sailor. Come and find me here.

Notes & Credits:

Items Featured at Enchantment’s Siren’s Song:

Hair: Analog Dog (natch!), Aura
Trident Necklace: Lantian/Flox, Trident Necklace
Skin & Makeup, including super-nifty scale cheeks): Loa, Merea
Eyes: Lovelysweet, Tialoc Eyes
Riptide Tail Applier: Brine, by Zen Child Designs, Oculi Chakra Mermaid Tail (Body, Third Eye, Fins, Root) You must have the Riptide Mer Tail by Aii&Ego to use this applier.
Fishnet Drape, Top, Pearl Strings, and Pastie: Devious Mind, Catch
Claws: QE, Leviathan Claws
Lyre: HarshLands, Echoes of the Depth
Backdrop: Fallen New York (FNY), The Lake Night Backdrop

Other Fancy Stuff:

Purple Tentacle Tattoo: Nefekalum, Abyss
Nasty Big Pointy Teeth: Contraption, Bento Teeth, The Sharps
Eyebrows: Needful Things (NT), Undine Fishtail Brows
Carved Gills: Evermore, Siren (carving) tattoo
Poses:
- Photo 1 (Basking): Be My Mannequin?, Sunning
- Photos 2-4, all from Dovely, Siren
Mer Tail: Aii & Ego, Riptide
This Siren was styled on a Maitreya Mesh body with a Lelutka EvoX Zo mesh head.

Special thanks to fellow Enchantment blogger Zudrial Rose, who told me where to get these teeth!

* The River Lethe was one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology. Any mortal who crossed it experienced complete forgetfulness, thus easing the transition into the oblivion of death.

Nerdy Poetry Notes:

TL;DR: This is a very slightly modified Elizabethan Sonnet

Traditionally, an Elizabethan Sonnet (or English Sonnet, or Shakespearean Sonnet, if you prefer) has 14 lines, comprised of

Three quatrains, in iambic pentameter, with rhyme scheme ABBA, CDDC, EFFE; and
A final couplet, with rhyme scheme GG.

There’s an extra quatrain in this sonnet; or you can consider the “first” quatrain a second epigraph (after the bit in common meter); I’m not bothered either way: the poem needed it.