Concerning Mermaids

Hello. Until recently I had forgotten I had a blog. Sorry for neglecting you. I doubt anyone has actually been straining with frustrated anticipation at the lack of updates, but if I am wrong about that I apologise to both of you. This as much as anything else is an archive for my own purposes independent of any misplaceable object or fail-threatening hard drive, so I having remembered it exists I shall start trying to make use of this again. I have written a thing which I thought I'd share with you. It came out of a challenge to write a six-line poem from a given title in under two minutes and then a subsequent free-write. It's called "Concerning Mermaids" and goes thusly:

Concerning Mermaids

There are rules you must follow when playing make believe.

Everything you create has to be internally consistent

So that when the grey men with clipboards come

The world does not collapse

When they start poking at it with fingers like under-ripe raspberries.

The law concerning mermaids, however,  is that they’re as real as you make them.

I bought three when I was little.

I saved up until I had seven pounds

Stacked in sun-coloured coins.

Mum gave me a piece of purple paper

She said I could use

If my treasure hoard proved not quite enough.

I put them in a yellow and green paddling pool we got from Morrisons,

And visited them every day.

They sang me folk songs, fed me tiny pastries,

And told me stories from far ahead in the future

Of when I would save the Elf Queen from disaster.

They knew I could do it when the time came,

Said they could read it in my smile.

I can still see the blue enamelled armour they told me I would wear.

Real life oozes in furtively through the cracks of your mind,

Unnoticed and malignant.

It steals the magic from you

Until you find yourself getting angry at strangers for laughing.

When I was sixteen

I was presented with my own clipboard,

On which I filled in important-looking forms

That no one ever read.

Last year I made a note on it

Saying that the colours of the paddling pool

Had faded,

And it was now so filled with empty beer tins

There was no room for even the tiniest of cream-filled pastries,

Or folk songs,

Or little boys valiantly protecting Elven royalty.

I handed in my clipboard that day.

I no longer wanted to ooze into other people’s heads.

I painted my grey suit a blue like a lazy sky in August,

Found a little piece of enamel

Which I pinned to my lapel,

And polished up my home-made

Dragon-kicking shoes.

I would argue fighting dragons is more noble than fighting each other.

I didn’t find any dragons that afternoon.

I admit, I didn’t look for very long.

Instead I drank orange squash

And read stories in the sunshine.

When I turned the last page I looked up and saw

A yellow and green paddling pool

Brimming with sparkling water,

And dotted here and there

With magnolia petals.

Maybe the mermaids changed the water themselves?

I don’t know if there’s still room for three.

I’d forgotten how much space a good story can take up

I can only hope

They’re still good enough friends

That they don’t mind being squeezed up against each other.

So much time has passed

I’ve forgotten the details,

And now I get to relearn these stories,

Love once more each phrase, image, detail.

I get to play make-believe

And return to thoughts of childhood books;

They’re the reason I say I believe in fairies.

One hopes you're well,

yrs,

ADWoodward