Riddle
By Ian Duhig
Who I am’s child’s play,
a cry in a kindergarten;
though I pun on Latin,
my Yorkshire kin’s laik,
a whole lexical rainbow
unweaving in no code,
no Mason’s Mahabone
nor Horseman’s Word —
but I’m caltrops at night
to the bare feet of adults
inspiring their language
to such colors as I am,
Kulla, Mondrian plastic
pixelating Mies blocks;
the Ephesian Artemis
in each cubist bust;
the Song of Amergin
by a Turing machine:
name me or you’ll be
thicker than any brick.
Copyright Credit: This poem is from The Blind Roadmaker (Pan MacMillan, 2016) © Ian Duhig and published with permission of Picador.
Source: Poetry (December 2015)