Neanderthal
        "a possibility that Neanderthals were the artists"
                JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, NEW YORK TIMES

1

Red disk, handprint
patterns from nature
symbols of power and prayer.

You know this story:
history is written
by the winners.

But wait now: who
is this we? The
portrait's all wrong.

The huge forehead
a no-brainer
or so we thought

some primal pride
in our own lineage.
Who else can do

what we do, walk
and chew gum
at the same time?

First rough draft
check our facts
fog of war

mix our metaphors
and our media
could it be—art?

2

This is how I see him
lurching from the cave:
Pablo Neanderthal

animal skins a riot
of splattered paint
the happiest mess

of any almost-man
who ever walked
the great earth.

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Copyright © 2015 Jeffrey Brown All rights reserved
from The News
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission