It's Still Life

NaPoWriMo Day 14: Explore the
meaning of your first or last name.

The This and That of Brændeholm

There’s this bit, and then there’s
that bit. It’s a two-bit kind of a
name that is old Norse, the first half
busy, going about burning down
the place, the place being an islet,
which is an eyot, yes eyot, or an ait,
it’s all down to some old Norse again.

I had to look that one up also – eyot is an ait. Eh?
I don’t think I want to live on an eyot or an ait …

so anyway, it’s a wee flat island
in a lake, and whenever it rains,
the eyot, there’s that word again,
submerges and disappears until
the water level drops again, then
up it pops up like a scabby wart,
but a proper eyot has soil so thin
that no way in hell will it sparkle*

*that bit gets lost is translation, the sparkle bit,

because it’s covered with stubble rot,
soaking dank air — it’s terra nullius,
meaning ‘nobody’s land’ and also
meaning the first Old Norse bit of my
name is torching our wee rotting eyot,

as is expected of a Norseman, and which I nearly managed myself
when playing with matches in the garage when I was 4,

though there’s always this breath
of smoke blowing across the face
of the lake, rising up into the stars,
that eyot incandescent every night,
and that’s what the Brændeholm
name means, the first bit is busy
torching the place, and burning
down the house, while the second
bit is a wee scabby, rotting eyot
that submerges when it rains.

The Poeming Day 14: The Blue Man & Slide the Cat

https://miskyb.tumblr.com/post/648436133864325120/day-14-slide-blue

for shared with @Experimentsinfc #APoemADay on Twitter   © Misky 2021