(Inspired by 2001 as a big Arthur C Clarke fan)
A bulky hirsute hulk shifts in a slate grey crevice of rock
Sleep tremour shaking as if amid a somunambulating shock
It's poking penetrating to the creature’s cerebral core
Evoking a fright even comotose it just could not ignore
When on the empty plains it and an ugly sauran beast
Fought out to a bloody death the survivor then to feast.
“I’ll smite you with my club” or some such thought occurred
In Cromagnum style for it possessed no single spoken word.
Our future volubility was not within it’s grasp just then
But give him time and see just what would happen when
A caveman would know exactly what to call his hairy wife
Who had no syntax at his commands to articulate such strife
That might afflict the diurnal struggle of such an an early quiet man
No notion had he either of reflex but if his club missed then he ran.
Clutching this weapon “ugh ugh” was as much as he could handle
His hard feet swathed in wraps of hide he couldn’t call a sandal.
Morning sun shone its waking light on the gruffly snoring slumbers
The fellow anthropoids watch their chief as sullenly it lumbers
Down to the handy nearby pool to suck the reviving waters
Flashing its teeth to the waiting group of wives and sons and daughters.
“Aarkh! aarkh!," it barked, a beckoning call so all knew they must follow
The elders quenched thirsts fully before the short ones dared a swallow.
Breakfast primordial morning for a primeval strand of culture
While up aloft our proto-man whirled a form of early vulture.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Hi, Frank. Hey, I can see before my movie-sodden eyes the first 10 minutes of Kubrick's great film - that contrast and contest between two types of our hairy ancestors - the Cro-Magnon ones who didn't make it because their brains could come up with nothing more than endless "ugh ugh", and the ones, like our "proto-man", who "whirled" a stick in the air like a victorious and deadly attack helicopter, a "form of early vulture." I'm not sure I got that scene as you intended, but I sure like the whole "hairy" poem anyway.
Lots of sly humor in this one, Frank, at least for me. I chuckled at your "But give him time and see just what would happen when / a caveman would know just what to call his hairy wife..."
I have to admit my denseness trying to distinguish cavemen, Cro-Magnons, early quiet man, anthropoids and proto-man from each other in the poem, but I still really got into the scene here. Clever writing on one of the movies' greatest sequences of all time. May the Monolith be with you.
Cheers.
Lad -
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Good Lad ho ho - sorry
Sorry to go for the good lad heading not original but couldn't resist. Sincere thanks for your splendiferous review you got the essential despite my obfuscation. I did overdo the anthropoligical dictionary. I've been reading too much Plumeister (sorry Al) and got longworditis. Or maybe touched the monolith and overloaded on educashion. I lost you on the vulture perhaps where I meant a sort of pterodactyl. I'm on a Sci-Fi site by the way and nominated the bone to space-ship wipe shot as the best ever SF scene and can watch that over and over - really. Good to know I am not alone. I know everyone says this but I don't get that many crits somehow, maybe deservedly. Thanks Lad & cheers Frank. -
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Hi, Frank. Glad I got most of what you were after in this droll poem. And, not to worry about your headline; I'm used to getting all kinds of puns on my screenname. Thing is, it's really my lifelong nickname, and all my relatives and most of my friends still call me Lad, despite my advancing age, no less. Makes me feel like I've found the fabled fountain of...middle age!
Cheers.
Lad -
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To LAD
thanks for getting back to me about the origins of your nickname - Frank.
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