Ballad of the Siren Song
“Come
closer and I will tell you a secret
To you, to you,
only to you.
Come Closer.”
You’re perched sultry on a craggy cliff,
curvy on a windswept rock
with red dress clinging to your breasts:
you play that tune, that tune you play
it’s calling out to me.
And I’m sailing, roving, lost at sea,
bedraggled by the ocean spray
and changing course for you.
Because, that tune, that tune you play
it jolts me, hooks me, reels its prey:
from silent waves to violin,
from moonless numb to sun-kissed-skin
from topsail calm to snatching whip,
from steady course to daring trip.
I hear that tune, that tune you play
it takes me further, far away:
your spiral smile, your whirlpool lips,
they whisper songs to rolling ships.
That tune you play, with gravity
hypnotic moonstruck melody,
there’s no escape, the heavens swarm
electrostatic pulses form –
I’d love to be your thunderstorm,
whipping up the specks of you,
teasing you; perplexing you
not pleasing you; just vexing you
yet needing the effects of you,
a feeling that projects on you,
it’s squeezing me and sexing you.
And yet, that tune, that tune you play
it leads me on in some strange way –
I see beached skulls and broken hulls
shadows changing, screeching gulls,
till I’m marooned, a castaway,
a shipwreck in your taloned splay.
Michael
Tyldesley
If you have any thoughts about this
poem, Michael Tyldesley would
be pleased to hear them
