15/04/2015

#poem #poetry #amwriting #i #am #aim

i am

it is a stone
   with a line of eight holes
   seven holes within a lozenge below
      on top of five holes in a line
      beside a triangle of three holes

it probably has a name
   - sum - eli - je suis - tu et -
everything does
                   but I shall name it - stone - wiv 'oles -

I try to interest my children
   saying 'this was carved before the pyramids
                                                           were built'
                             
      as if somehow
   they can grasp the wonderment
   of a person four thousand years ago
      climbing a landscape
         probably not dissimilar to this
            - though with ice - perhaps -
            - and maybe mammoth and hippo -
to make a mark
    a testament
to say - jeg er - soy - dwi - nork wuz ere -

but they are more interested
   in standing on it
      so that when I try to take a picture
      their feet are in the frame
- ich bin - get orf - schlemiel -

   and as we wander away
      they paddling shoeless in the mud
I imagine the holes filled with fat
   and some sort of wick
for an illuminated promenade
      no doubt ending in bloody sacrifice
      on one of the large rocks

I doubt those meeting their maker
    were told
   - as my children now are -
'if you can get up, you can get down'

    though perhaps there was
    a similar form of taunting
        as I climb up to where they cannot reach
            perch on the rock and eat wotsits


The Blue Book

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