06 December - Salp Poetry Special

It appears that Salp-Fever is sweeping the hallways and decks of the L.M. Gould.  We've been catching salps regularly in our net tows and several people in the field team are now members of the prestigious Southern Ocean Salp Sucker Society!  Even the Marine Techs have become enchanted with our gelatinous zooplankton friends.  So, I present two poems about salps written by two of our great MTs (Ode to the Salp by Mereidi Liebner and the slightly darker "death to salps, an anthem" by Chance Miller). For the record, Chance's poem does not accurately describe our experiments. Poets often use artistic license to illustrate a point and that is the case here. Warning: Some poems may contain adult language and/or themes.

A Grand Salp Adventure by Mereidi Liebner

There once was a Salp named Sylvester.

He lived in the sea with his girlfriend ester.

He thought she was boring, and went out exploring

And soon found that he did not need her.

He swam eating and growing,

He made babies behind, unknowing.

That fate would soon twist,

Carbon making desist,

And all that he knew would stop flowing.

A noise, and a swish surrounded,

He never was, nor not quite ever grounded,

Enough to foresee this new theme in the sea

Studies that more have astounded!

So feeble and yet quite forlorn,

The net got him, the vice of Joe Warren.

To be studied by Kate,

there be no more free mate,

He should have just kept being boring.

death to salps, an anthem by Chance Miller

those salps know what they done was wrong
we know those bastards don't got long
we'll catch them with this song
I think we'll catch them with this song
salty protean slippery salps
We'll kill them with our net
and watch scientists drown them in medicine
numbing wounds they won't forget.
these wounds they won't forget.
those salps... salacious, portentous,
boiling in alka seltzer while we grin,
We'll watch them sink to the bottom,
and float them back again.
In the end when we are done
and they've been sent through hell,
tortured in the name of science, 
for sins we can't re-tell
they'll find solace in their turmoil
in a negative eighty cell.

-Joe