The Unidentified Specimen

None of these glass jars are labelled for me,

None of these lists hold my name.

None of the clans make a claim for me,

Unwilling to share in my shame.

I cannot be labelled, cannot be found,

Cannot be bottled or insect-pinned down,

My gravestone is blank here, and under the ground

My coffin is empty; I cannot be bound.

I have no alcove

To sit in, with the others

Of my tribe.

I am no poet,

It is only that sometimes words

Rip tiny holes in my chest and

Force their way out from within,

Shuffling in embarrassment and

Blinking in the sun and

placing themselves in odd combination locks

Of disorder.

I have no shelf to share with

others of my kind;

I am no genius,

my shadow will spawn no greatness,

Just little ideas,

Little fragments of itself,

That detach at random from the whole,

And hop away limply like dark frogs,

To by crushed by passing cars.

Perhaps one in a thousand survives.

Not enough to

Label myself by.

I have no place

In the index.

You will not find me by running

Dusty fingers down the list of artists,

Who trod this earth, leaving paint-pooled footprints

And smudged thumbprints

Behind them.

I leave fingerprints on glasses sometimes,

But they will be washed away

Eventually.

There is no plaque

That will bear my name;

No room will ring with the sound of my voice,

Denouncing, announcing, bringing hope or drawing glares.

I have a tongue,

But it is the wrong shape

To inspire anything

But the dust motes in my window

As they float on soft-spoken, sunlit currents.

I shall lead my shadow,

And the voids in the air that

Form as I walk.

Nothing more.

For you can’t catch my shadow, you can’t catch my words,

Nor index them neatly; they’ll fly off the page;

Unruly, unnameable, untraceable birds;

My labels catch fire with indignant rage.

I can’t be defined or categorised,

Some fault for that’s yours; and some if it’s mine;

No one will claim me and I’ll claim no tribe,

All I need is the sand and the sea and the sky.