Kit Kelen #8 - making a map of the world

making a map of the world

for Anna Couani

it's boy's thing I suppose –
how far can you
spit
piss
toss your hat in the air
throw a stone
drive
drink
eat
smoke 

I think of Yao's road
running like a horse that's bolted

it goes a long way back

Hatshepsut takes a Punt

I think of Hanno
skinning girl gorillas

to sail beyond the wild world's end
methinks it is no journey
… at least for Mad Tom it's not

the map of the world –
whose idea was that?

Columbus died thinking he'd got to India
Magellan died in the dark
Cook in a rain of spears
Mercator, Mollweide, all their improvers –
what did any of them know?

what if the world had no end?
that's where I'd like to entertain
think of Monkey pissing on Buddha's fingers
just to mark the spot

think of a fold in the River of Ocean
and not just Hades, Elysium
but let's give endlessness a go
under the blood
fast past the clouds
in womb-light
there's a bible to read

girl rats steer by what they know
boy rats have the grid in their heads

and those lines off to infinity
of course this could all just be a rumour
no one has yet opened the sky
we live in the same language
that's the miracle
of how we mean at all

so let's see how far
you can
spit
piss
toss your hat in the air
throw a stone

be a flea
and see
how far
you can jump

and how far can you get
with a story like that

you see why it is men rule the world
litiluism – the old Viking lore –
how little it is men know