skald

i am suttungr the giant
and i am older than age

wrapped in skins i stitched
by hand, in it a club of gnarled oak braids

i have lived before glory
and known no heroes days.

now i walk in their meadhall
my horn overfilled, but no cup do i take

they call themselves gods
but god sits in another plane

and he is neither fair nor blond
but thick and fat and terrible plain.

a terrible mallet chained to his wrist
over the crystalline lattice of metaphors make

and he lets it loll over the gods
their halls, thrones, glasses edged in gold and scraped

clean by elders ken, by hammer and pick and
man and woman and child gone already to fate.

on a day i will wake up face down in a cowpat
cold and licked by cattle in a dranksick state

and look about me and see that the gold is in the ground again
with the old bones, and the clock's weight


and there will be no gods to question suttungr the giant
for i am older than age