JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Over here, the guide said

is the worm colony

born into blindness

white bodies squirming

exuding trails of hieroglyphics

they wriggle their way

across sheets of pressed papyrus

in meaningless patterns of

intestinal scribble and scrawl.

 

They say a billion worms

crawling across a million sheets

said a goat-faced student chewing

a carrot next to a showcase

labeled Fact or Fiction,

could write the entire Mythology,

compose the Seven Holy Books.

 

Indeed they do, clever goat

intoned the guide, and that is why

the Scholars say…., but his words

were cut off by a procession

of monks carrying brooms who

swept the worms into scroll-like

containers to be buried and

rediscovered by new generations

of diggers searching for The Truth.