Last night I had a dream
That my dad - who I hardly ever see
Had won a Nobel Prize
For his amazing contribution to art history.

To highlight man’s domination
Over the oceans that he sails
He had created an environmental masterpiece
With the help of 20 oversexed local males

Yes my father - who was somewhat down on activism
But pretty good with oils
Had abandoned his usual ambivalence
To comment on the human race’s
Oceanic spoils.

Crafting an unlikely collage
From which he asked mankind to learn
It was a backlit life size sperm whale
Fashioned out of sperm.

He then captioned it with the words
‘Beware of deadly sea men.’
Before signing it with his blood
Like some narcissistic daemon.

Up until that point
Artistically, I’d always considered my Dad a saint
In my mind he was traditional
He liked to paint with paint

Now standing cowering in the shadow
Of this 60-foot sperm encrusted orca
I was feeling quite conflicted
Was I really this man’s daughter?

Biologically I was reeling
My stomach nauseous and cart-wheeling

Desperately trying to shake the image
Of my father sculpting cum
While at the same time feeling strangely proud
Of the award that he had won.

I mean whales are really suffering
Over hunted and harpooned
Killed my military sonar
Or washed up, polluted and marooned

So the fact that my Dad had found the gall
To encourage 20 willing men
To ejaculate up a canvas wall
(Emptying out each sweaty bollock
In the style of Jackson Pollack)
Was a pretty unexpected twist
A sly flick of a heroic wrist.

In the face of his utter conviction
To this piece of edgy eco art
The dustsheet was finally slipping
Off his very dusty heart

And i realised with some triumph
That my Dad was a Nobel Prize winning giant
Doing his bit for bio-diversity
By ejaculating with a purpose
Straight into the outline of a porpoise.

Then I woke up.

And with bleary eyes
Shuddered to consider the symbolism
Behind my rapidly fading dream
What was it saying, just what did it mean?

(And ignoring for this lifetime the mortifying Freudian father/daughter connotations)

I noted with some horror
That the sperm whale he‘d created
And somewhat masturbated
Was not in fact my dad’s idea

But mine.

And I sunk beneath my duvet like a shy dolphin.

Liv Torc (c)