Lorelei Ii Poem by robert dickerson

Then, of course, when the moon cued
or when lightning ciphered, one saw
the riveting flash of flesh-vein blue, mica bright;
heard the song with overtones bedight
that seemed to hang in air
sketching a kind of heaven-
eliciting first suspicions
and the golden hair, stringy like fishtails
and the odd, left-handed haircombing-
rapt, ictal,
ceaselessly significant.

Then death-stalking desire, the story goes
coiled tightly around the bows, knowing needle,
pointing like Death to the cleft. And Everyman
cast his obol down;
rudder, released, swam merrily unmanned;
ropes, sighing lightly, slithered from the grip.
Mudprobing pushpoles clattered from hands:
ahead, at the bend, water
bubbles into laughter;
moonlight diffused its gas; Slowly,
slowly, the great maelstrom began.