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Poets and artists

Interview with a Trilobite

Want the biggest name around here?
I’m the biggest name around here:
detritivore looter, king scooter,
the meanest gleaner of this old
dried up neck of sea woods,
this out-grown, dreck-stone piece
of town and country park.
See these leather jacket curves,
these leg-fronds of the louse,
this head lamp of the all-seer?
Well, they’ve seen me alright.
 
Once were sponges, so they say,
but nowt so soft in our family,
no life of the yes-sir-no-sir
homeboy water-lung for us.
History hard marks or only traces,
I learnt that in Palaeozoic day.
Time wasn’t going to forget me,
I wasn’t going to be one
dying to be un-remembered,
a cord-less, bubble head jelly,
clueless about leaving any clue.
I’ve floated or cruised my way
through crowded juice for aeons,
and despite these looks or legend
my time’s been mostly spent
sedentary in the sediment -
unless, that is, stuff happened
and I balled my way from trouble
zippered up tight as a six pack.
We lounged the soup in groups
back then, kept each other close,
and our shells, thicker than water,
thick as thieves, did us proud.
 
I’m part and parcel of the scape,
written deep into these sheer banks,
this cake-rock and crumbled scree.
I’ll pop up and crop out forever
to glyph my scrawl on litterbins,
to carve it into fences and stiles,
to hide away in woods and hills
lighting fires and tinny-tippling
on cheap cider and Special Brew.
Words will live or die about me,
short ones, blown-in-a-wind ones,
the length and strength Latin ones,
but I’ll always be your name
and you’ll be forever in mine.
I’m the signature creature,
top-dog of the whole fossil game.