Poem
Christopher James
ICELAND
ICELAND
ICELAND
At night I hear, faintly, the up-gushof muddy geysers; the distant \'pop\'
of a finger expertly flicked
from inside the cheek, and the creak
of summer icebergs, drifting
a centimetre a week.
Blocking a draughty window,
there it is again, an article on
Icelandic farmers who, in bleak
winters must chip off the frozen
beards of their cattle to prevent them
from hurting each other.
And by day there is no escape either.
There is Old Icelandic to master
and sagas to digest in chilly bedrooms,
like The Voyage of Snedda, who
fathered a child in every village
in the country and could eat a whole
musk-ox without ruining his appetite.
© 2006, Christopher James
From: The Invention of Butterfly
Publisher: Ragged Raven Press,
From: The Invention of Butterfly
Publisher: Ragged Raven Press,
Christopher James
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1975)
Christopher James won the National Poetry Competition in March 2009 for his poem ‘Farewell to the Earth’. He also won the Bridport Prize in 2002 and the Ledbury Poetry Prize in 2002 and 2006. His most recent collection is The Invention of Butterfly. Christopher is also the recipient of an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors. His poems have appeared in The Rialto, Smiths Knoll, Londo...
Poems
Poems of Christopher James
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ICELAND
At night I hear, faintly, the up-gushof muddy geysers; the distant \'pop\'
of a finger expertly flicked
from inside the cheek, and the creak
of summer icebergs, drifting
a centimetre a week.
Blocking a draughty window,
there it is again, an article on
Icelandic farmers who, in bleak
winters must chip off the frozen
beards of their cattle to prevent them
from hurting each other.
And by day there is no escape either.
There is Old Icelandic to master
and sagas to digest in chilly bedrooms,
like The Voyage of Snedda, who
fathered a child in every village
in the country and could eat a whole
musk-ox without ruining his appetite.
From: The Invention of Butterfly
ICELAND
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