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Post by Nancy on Feb 26, 2013 10:10:01 GMT -8
PARACHUTE: The Coney Island Performance Festival
Poem-A-Day (from the Academy of American Poets) is by one of our 2012 Parachute Poets, Matthea Harvey!
The Objectified Mermaid
by Matthea Harvey
The photographer has been treating her like a spork all morning. "Wistful mouth, excited tail! Work it, work it!" He has no idea that even fake smiling spreads to her eyes and her tail and there's nothing she can do about it short of severing her spine. Without asking, the assistant re-sprays her with glycerine. It's gonna be hell getting all that grease off her scales tonight but she can't scum up her tank at the bar--its weekly cleanings seem more like monthly these days, and fewer and fewer patrons have been inviting (read: paying) her for a Tankside Mertini and quick feel of her tail. There's one regular who lapses in and out of consciousness and he's the real reason she stays. Every once in a while he seems to have forgotten where he is and he looks at her with the kind of wonder she imagines her grandmother inspired when she first risked coming ashore. After an hour under the studio spotlights, she's starting to smell pretty fishy. Can't blame it (as she has before) on her standard seaweed bra because this fool of a photographer has her holding two clear fishbowls in front of her breasts so it looks like goldfish are swimming past her nipples. She's supposed to pretend it tickles. She wants to ask if he's heard the phrase "gilding the lily" which she recently learned at Land Berlitz. When asked if she's tired, she lies. A downward spiral means the opposite up here.
Copyright © 2013 by Matthea Harvey. Used with permission of the author.
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anni
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Post by anni on Feb 28, 2013 18:57:14 GMT -8
This is a most strange and wonderful perspective, Nancy. How did you discover this poem? Quite a delight. It always is when you post the unusual...LOVE IT!
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Roberta
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Post by Roberta on Mar 10, 2013 16:25:10 GMT -8
I'm quoting Nancy's wondrous poem in case Yoko drops in -- I'm sure she will like it. Here's the article I mentioned at the corner. Sorry about the incessant ads to subscribe -- I've already taken The Nation to task for being especially annoying since I already subscribe. www.thenation.com/article/173028/oh-yoko-ms-ono-80The Objectified Mermaid by Matthea Harvey The photographer has been treating her like a spork all morning. "Wistful mouth, excited tail! Work it, work it!" He has no idea that even fake smiling spreads to her eyes and her tail and there's nothing she can do about it short of severing her spine. Without asking, the assistant re-sprays her with glycerine. It's gonna be hell getting all that grease off her scales tonight but she can't scum up her tank at the bar--its weekly cleanings seem more like monthly these days, and fewer and fewer patrons have been inviting (read: paying) her for a Tankside Mertini and quick feel of her tail. There's one regular who lapses in and out of consciousness and he's the real reason she stays. Every once in a while he seems to have forgotten where he is and he looks at her with the kind of wonder she imagines her grandmother inspired when she first risked coming ashore. After an hour under the studio spotlights, she's starting to smell pretty fishy. Can't blame it (as she has before) on her standard seaweed bra because this fool of a photographer has her holding two clear fishbowls in front of her breasts so it looks like goldfish are swimming past her nipples. She's supposed to pretend it tickles. She wants to ask if he's heard the phrase "gilding the lily" which she recently learned at Land Berlitz. When asked if she's tired, she lies. A downward spiral means the opposite up here. Copyright © 2013 by Matthea Harvey. Used with permission of the author. |
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Post by Nancy on Mar 12, 2013 15:23:34 GMT -8
So glad you liked the poem!! Did you catch the Mermaid March pun - this being the month & all I mean?  Roberta, it seems I have to subscribe to read this article, right? I REALLY want to read it but I don't want to get caught up in some commitment I can't get out of so I would appreciate it if you would let me know. Thanks for posting! |
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Post by Nancy on Apr 15, 2013 10:57:21 GMT -8
The Inside Out Mermaid
The Inside Out Mermaid is fine with letting it all hang out — veins, muscles, the bits of fat at her belly, her small gray spleen. At first her lover loves it — with her organs on the outside, she’s the ultimate open book. He can pump her lungs like two bellows and make her gasp; ask her difficult questions and study the synapses firing in her brain as she answers to see if she’s lying; poke a pleasure center in the frontal lobe and watch her squirm. Want to tug on her heartstrings? No need for bouquets or sad stories about his childhood. He just plucks a pulmonary vein and watches the left ventricle flounder. But before long, she starts to sense that her lover, like all the others before him, is getting restless. This is when she usually starts showing them her collections — the basket of keys from all over the world, the box of zippers with teeth of every imaginable size — all chosen to convey a sense of openness. As a last resort, she’ll even read out loud the entries from her diary about him to him. But soon he’ll become convinced she’s hiding things from him and she is. Her perfect skin. Her long black hair. Her red mouth, never chapped from exposure to sun or wind, and how she secretly loves that he can’t touch her here or here.
MATTHEA HARVEY
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anni
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Post by anni on Apr 17, 2013 19:52:22 GMT -8
I'm enjoying this poem more and more...like it's growing on me from the inside out. Wow, good one, Nancy.
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Post by Nancy on Apr 19, 2013 8:47:45 GMT -8
Thanks Anni. I'll miss you guys tonight. I keep forgetting to get a hard copy of the article on Yoko. I'm seeing Janis tonight. Her last recording was a birthday message to John Lennon. She sang "Happy Trails to You" - adorable! - a couple of weeks before she died. I can't get that article about Yoko without a subscription so anyone who has a hard copy  , it'll have a good home  . Peace Out,  Nancy |
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anni
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Post by anni on Apr 21, 2013 16:34:39 GMT -8
I keep forgetting to get a hard copy of the article on Yoko. I can't get that article about Yoko without a subscription so anyone who has a hard copy , it'll have a good home . Peace Out, Nancy The amazing team of Roberta and Brian has come through once again, Nancy. A few weeks ago Roberta passed along her Nation Magazines. Brian was carefully re-checking them for the Yoko article and he found it. (On page 5 of the March 11/18, 2013 issue) We will bring it to next week's vigil and then it will officially be yours, Nancy! |
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Roberta
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Post by Roberta on Apr 22, 2013 9:23:28 GMT -8
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, it'll have a good home 
. Peace Out, 
Nancy