Pantoum or just pants?

On the roof of the world the bears are waiting

On the roof of the world the bears are waiting,

for when the ice sheets shudder like a wind-shot tablecloth across the land

and we part ice-torn mouths, hungry for the surf, lash dogs to makeshift sleds

and scatter like marbles, rotund with fox fur and whale skin, a feast for sweaty paws.

The ice sheets sweep a loving shroud over lonely cities,

We bind up our children, our treasures, our dead, tote them across continents,

scatter like marbles, glut our frozen skin with fox fur and whale skin, and feast

on the eyeless carcasses of vulture-torn cattle. The birds wheel endlessly in the frozen sky.

We bind up our children, hoist the dead over our shoulders, and hunt

an eider for our bellies, our fingers fumble rosaries over the bones of a narwhal.

The eyeless carcasses watch us toil, endlessly beseeching the frozen sky:

the sea sings a sweetness to the ears of hungry fishermen.

Fingers fumble rosaries over the bones of a narwhal. Wind-bit and bound

the dead call us to the sea; their voices ring hollowly across the lowlands.

The sea sings a sweetness to the wave-licked bones of the wicked.

As the ocean hugs the lonesome earth, the fishes leap at the edge of the world.

Falcons drove us to the sea; their wings squeaked hollowly across the lowlands

and we parted ice-torn mouths, hungry for the surf, as the dogs loped and the wind sang.

Where the ocean hugs the aching earth, our dead kissed the bitter waves; and sank.

On the roof of the world the bears are waiting.

Kirsty Judge

Kirsty Judge : 26 Jan 2012 00:21 |  Tags: Poetry Terrible |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem