30. A Shameful Thing

... being further thoughts on the terrors and terrible consequences of the male sex drive unleashed.

In the previous article “Chained to a Madman” I was as honest as I dared to be about my experience as a man, and took courage from the fact that I believe that I am not unusual in it. For one reason or another, sexual obsession and improper thoughts and behaviour are recurring themes in my poetry. I find such topics fascinating, and although I might treat them with humour I would like to think that there is more to what I write than just the bawdy jokes in the words that I present.

The theme of sexual indiscretion sprang to my mind during a recent workshop given by John Beal about the American poet Leah Bodine Drake. I really don’t know how John finds his subjects. Drake (1905 - 1964) claimed to be a descendent of both Sir Francis Drake and Davy Crockett. She wrote strange fantasy poems about mythology, witchcraft and the supernatural. John brought in a whole slew of these to the meeting. He had discovered them by researching online files from Weird Tales Magazine, a fascinating journal of strange poetry dating back to 1923, which also featured contributions from H.P Lovecraft, and, many years later, Ray Bradbury. Amongst the Drake poems were tales of witches, of werewolves of mermaids and ghosts, but the one that grabbed my attention was called The Seal Woman’s Daughter.

It starts like this..

I am half of the Land
And half of the sea 
For my Dam was a seal
And I am her daughter

I am sib to the land
and Kin to the sea
For my dam was a seal
But a King sired me

If, like me, you are unsure of what dam means in this context, it is an archaic term for mother (particularly the mother of an animal)

The poem goes on to tell of the daughter’s difficulties and experiences. She is very beautiful, but has the eyes of a seal in the face of a woman, (in the illustration, she also has a flipper like hand with long webbed fingers, but this is probably the work of an artist whose job it was to provide sensational looking etchings without necessarily reading the text too closely.) Her father wants to marry her off, but she rejects all suitors, because “there is not one who smells of the sea” She fantasises with a mixture of longing and fear, that a lover may rise out of the sea, dark, sleek and furry, with seal brown eyes.

It is a fabulous poem, and and the seal girl is a fantastic character, but I couldn’t help wondering about her father. The fact that he had has some sort of intimate interaction with a seal is incidental to the story, it is glossed over. And yet you have to wonder about him. He doesn’t come across as the sort of fellow who regularly has dealings with the seal kingdom. He wants to marry his daughter off to a Hero or a Prince. He does not invite seals to his palace, he doesn’t seem to see them as suitable husband material.

Perhaps there is a hint of racism in the plot. Perhaps the tale speaks of the shameful days of history, when dark and sleek people had been brought (forcibly) from overseas, and when many of their woman were used sexually by unscrupulous men, creating offspring with dark brown eyes. Perhaps that is what the poem is really about. But on my first reading I was just stunned by the literal take, the idea that a man and a seal could have a child. I was also intrigued by the unwritten story of what happened to the father afterwards, and what became of the mother.

I wanted to write a response, but I wanted it to be from the viewpoint of the father. A man who had been chained to his own madman, and been unable to restrain him. A man who would doubtless claim that he had acted completely out of character, due to a lapse of judgement. Would he have felt shame? And if he did, would it have only been because he was made to face the consequences of his actions, and care for his daughter? There is that familiar heady mix of morality and wickedness in there. And that mix is something that I relish. Its a distance from the world of George Formby and George Melly, Its darker, more sinister, and perhaps a bit frightening too.

A Shameful Thing

(after The Seal-Woman’s Daughter
By Leah Bodine Drake)

Many years have passed since I
Was that mad, wicked youth
I’d had too much to drink Its true!	
But that is no excuse	
And to this day I feel the shame
The shame, The shame still stings

A solitary moonlight walk 	
Desire within my loins
Receding tide of bubbling foam 
Drew back over the sand
Revealed a seal of female form
The shame, the shame still stings    

No one would know, I told myself
As carnal thoughts took hold
Twas just a Brute - non sentient 
Which looked almost as women look
My lust had grown so strong in me
The shame, the shame still stings

I shagged that seal! 
And when I’d done
I left it there 
Its big dark eyes	
Accusing me!
My hot blood cooled 
And turned to ice
And the first prickle 
Of my shame
Crept up my spine
And took root there
Within my soul 
Where it remains 
Still stings today
The shame, the shame still stings

But this sad tale does not end there 
I wish it did, but no
The eighth full moon beyond that night
I lay in cold-sweat bed
And heard a shuffling, dragging sound 
Approach outside my home

Approached and left but left something
That made a wailing sound
With trembling limbs I crept downstairs
And opened up the door 
And there I found a baby girl
With black accusing eyes

I took her in, I had to do
I raised her as my own
I cared for her for sixteen years
People talked, I did not care
I could not have abandoned her
The shame, the shame still stings

And then one night
One Autumn tide
She went away
I don’t know where
Said no goodbye
Just disappeared
Into the sea?
Gone with the Wind?
I did not know
And no one asked
None spoke to me
They knew, they knew
That I had done
A shameful thing
The shame, the shame still stings