Temptress Poem by Niall Lawmile

Come night I heard a Siren’s call,

Burrowed ‘neath a searing gale

Cross wind-whipped crag and bleakest grass-

Through hedgerows would it sail



So on I trod, barefoot and lithe,

Hypnotized and captive true.

In shackling verse-less melody,

Enraptured new.



Proudly did I gaze on her

Effervescent ‘top the tides,

Flaxen hair and rose-hued lips;

A prince’s bride.



She beckoned me a pauper’s dance

And ’til the morn our souls entwined

Before she slipped beneath the foam

And rippled brine



And in her wake did spectres glow,

In rusted chains and lusty slew.

The pearly damned, eternal, wailed

‘You’ve lost her too’.



And so I broke the jeering surf,

And dove to murky depths unplumbed.

The Siren’s lull fresh in my mind

As water swelled my lungs



Now I join the haunted horde

With lidless eyes and abject ire,

Just to watch her rose-hued lips

And smell her flaxen hair.