Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Dancing Neanderthal by Roy Fisher


Dancing Neanderthal

Stronger muscles than ours;
Sharper tools –

Could speak?

Possibly.

Write?

Didn’t. Unless with sharp stones
they incised their skins
that would die with them, observing
the ban on lasting records.

Traffic in symbols? Paint on rocks?

Couldn’t?

Didn’t. May have been foresight and hard taboo
to stop themselves inventing
religion, football or flags. Our world’s ways of life
keep strong by prohibitions; and they may just have been
better than us at that, as they no doubt were
at contemplating extinction.

They could have danced?

All night, with that much muscle.

Sung?

No reason why not.

Hard wired to diatonic?


Roy Fisher, Standard Midland (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), 32-3.

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