<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mermaids <\/p>\n I used to work with mermaids,<\/p>\n a long time ago<\/p>\n In a forgotten city<\/p>\n which continuously burst forth<\/p>\n with foul smelling yellow trees,<\/p>\n angry cyclists and conservative politicians.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this city there also lived a multitude<\/p>\n of three year old scrubbed faces<\/p>\n Who found themselves one rainy morning<\/p>\n gazing up at me<\/p>\n imploring me to<\/p>\n \u201cdraw another mermaid, Miss Morrison, please\u2026.just one\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And I would.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We went searching in deep underwater caves<\/p>\n For glitter, silver paint, tin foil,<\/p>\n grains of sand<\/p>\n To garland these creatures in such finery<\/p>\n that no one could comprehend,<\/p>\n their kaleidoscopic eyes turning around in wonder<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And then, plied with a sense of glorious achievement,<\/p>\n they packed them into blue briefcases<\/p>\n swinging mercilessly from tiny scrunched up hands<\/p>\n To be placed on fridges,<\/p>\n under beds,<\/p>\n above desks<\/p>\n in envelopes to America.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I am no longer here.<\/p>\n When the moon no longer penetrates the water<\/p>\n to shine on my luminescent face.<\/p>\n I will live on in those mermaids<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Those three year olds, blithely sticking down tin foil<\/p>\n will one day forget me<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the mermaids,<\/p>\n surfacing from long forgotten drawers,<\/p>\n will live on forever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gemma Louisa Morrison<\/strong> won a class\u00a0poetry\u00a0contest aged 7 with a poem entitled ‘A House is a House for Me’. Now that she is 28, this remains the highpoint of her literary career.\u00a0She grew up in the far north of Scotland on a diet of American writers, woollen clothes and Calvinism.\u00a0She writes about displacement, memory, feminism and love. She has had work published in Salome Magazine, The Cadaverine, The Vagenda and the F Word blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mermaids \u201cI have heard the mermaids singing each to each, I do not think they will sing to me.\u201d – \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0T.S. Elliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock I used to work with mermaids, a long time ago In a forgotten city which continuously burst forth with foul smelling yellow trees, angry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5293"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5295,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5293\/revisions\/5295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>
\n\u201cI have heard the mermaids singing each to each,
\nI do not think they will sing to me.\u201d
\n<\/em>
\n– \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0T.S. Elliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock<\/p>\n