The Carving Song
A F Harrold
Er, this is called The Carving Song for reasons that er, become obvious when I read the poem.
Hhm.
There's a mountain I'm missing quite madly
That somewhere in the Andes resides
And it's not its great height that attracts me
But rather the images carved in its sides
There's a picture of a llama quite noble
Which few people go there to see
Because that poor llama's bits are all quite eclipsed
By the carving they've made there of me
The carving of me is amazing
Honest in feature and feel
Anatomically correct, I have been to inspect
Every wrinkle and rumple is real
In my left hand I hold a banana
Which is two hundred feet long as a guess
And the mouth is so wide there's a cavern inside
As deep and as dark as Loch Ness
In the tropical jungles it gets hot
So the natives all live in the nude
And my statue's the same and it's no cause for shame
And because it is art it's not rude
There's a waterfall just keeps on falling
That's fed by subterranean streams
And the place it comes out I cannot talk about
Though it may feature in some of your dreams
Now rock climbers consider me a challenge
Not quite as hard as the Old Man of Hoy
But when they reach the top there's a little gift shop
Where they can purchase an A F H toy
There's a cave half way up in my navel
Where world-weary mountaineers rest
Before they begin to strike out for my chin
'Cross the vastness that makes up my chest
Now why have I become immortal?
Like one of those four presidents
Enshrined on Mount Rushmore or like Ramses at Luxor
It's a question worth asking I sense
And the answer is long and it's tangled
And if I told you it'd take several nights
So I'll just save up the story of my claiming the glory
To mention just quickly the lights