(with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
It was the ancient mariner
Who stoppeth one in three
‘I killed a bird’ He cried
‘The ship becalmed
A flat salt sea
All my shipmates died of thirst
save me’
‘Forget the bird!’
the wedding guest replied
‘Let me sneak you right inside
I’ll get you a drink
(Here, let’s avoid that dope-head Taylor
He’d talk the hind-leg off a sailor)
You’ll not be wanting water I should think…
Come and meet the bride.’
Cherry Potts normally writes short fiction, but has recently published a vast novel. She publishes other people’s stories and poems at Arachne Press. ‘The Thirty Second Mariner’ was written in response to a newspaper column which complained about the length of the ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’