I must confess that, for most of my life, I’ve not felt much enthusiasm for the genre of poetry. When it comes to creatively exploring my innermost thoughts or feelings, I’ve never felt drawn to this particular method of expression. However, I’ll credit moving to Ireland—a country with a rich literary history and poetic tradition—as sparking a newfound interest in it. Reading some of the greatest poets in the English language and studying their craft has helped me to gain an appreciation for the art form, and with it, a keen desire to experiment.
This time around I’ve gone for a more narrative-led approach, rather than heavily focus on structure or language. The power of this poem—so far as there is any—lies in the internal experience of the character, I feel. What’s beautiful about poetry is its ability to convey and grant access to an ‘inner world’, or an ultimate truth. Our Stone Age Man does not have the same sophisticated words or conceptualiztions to express his thoughts as we do, yet his mind is aflame with all the same yearnings and fears and hopes as ours. A poem, then, might be the best tool we have to help us to bridge the ten-thousand year gap between our own consciousnesses and that of our ancestor.
I hope you’ll enjoy this poem. If you do, please take a moment to let me know, either by liking or commenting. Your encouragement and feedback will certainly go a long way to helping this fledgling wordsmith develop his confidence—and skill!
Émile-Antoine Bayard, illustration for Louis Figuier's L'Homme primitif, engraved by Charles Laplante, 1870.
The Stone Age Man
by C. J. W. Armstrong
The Stone Age Man
Seated by an ebbing fire ‘neath the starry canopy
Lay his head down next to his mate and slumbering kin
And dreamed a dream so vivid and bright and fantastic—
More wondrous than he had words to express—
That he could not tell of it to anyone thereafter.
/
He saw himself as something radiant:
Nobly-born
An Enlightened Age Man
Adept in understanding, aflame with ambition
Climbing toward heaven, the stars his handholds and footholds
Supporting his ascent as he scaled the Moon and surmounted the Sun.
He saw others like him; they talked together
Debated and contended in arcane tongues
Sharpening words and wits against one another’s, like weapons
Weapons they wielded cunningly, keenly, cutting their kindred down
At times in the name of strange ideas, strange gods, strange obsessions
At times in the name of nothing more than blood, soil, or gold
At times for love, at the cost of all else.
The marvelous works they had raised up, they tore down again
Their burnished blades now abraded to blunt instruments
Their towers were burning and their stars blotted by smoke
And he saw himself differently, then:
A Dark Age Man
Woeful and weeping
And he heard himself say:
‘If only we had not risen so high,
We might not have fallen so far.’
/
The Stone Age Man started, woke
Blinked his bewildered eyes in the embers’ terminal glow
So wondrous, so terrible was this dream
So impossible to express
That he could not tell of it to anyone thereafter.
/
And so he lay his head down again next to his mate and his kin
Brushed the hand of his child—still breathing, slow and gentle—
And went back to sleep.
Funnily enough I was reading an article only this afternoon about palaeolithic people taking hallucinogenic plants.
I can well imagine many of them had visions like the one you eloquently describe here...
I've always had this idea that we never really evolved, we just made ourselves more complex. We had skills back then that we've lost along the way, and gained others in their place. But underneath all that complexity, we're still the same. Sorry, I'm getting off topic, lol, but your piece sparked that thought. Nice poem, bro.