The Amarna Stelae.(Poem)

 
THE AMARNA STELAE 
 
for Jane 
 
"I have come to this castle in the north" 
 
   At Karnak, who was it unearthed 
   in nineteen twenty-five 
   those twenty-five colossi 
   of Akhenaten? In the photograph 
   they rise up out of the sand 
   like science fiction clones 
   or giant ivory chessmen 
   dropped at the end of a game 
   on a beach in the Hebrides. 
 
   They are caricatures of what 
   these twenty-five years 
   have made of one who stood 
   arms folded and holding 
   a flail to palely control 
   a class of Egyptian girls. 
   After me. What's your name? 
   Mr John, Mr John, 
   where you get pot belly? 
 
   Too much of Egypt has gone 
   to try and reconstruct 
   determinatives. Look at this 
   album with half its photos 
   fallen out, odd inscriptions 
   above blurred faces; at our 
   spoilheap of slides and this 
   cine we cannot translate 
   into any blank cartouche. 
 
   Voices that cheered the First 
   Cataract with us or sang us 
   to Kitchener's Island have fallen 
   dumb, have dried at their source 
   to the fixed mummy-smiles 
   of Tjuyu and Yuya, a mother 
   and father, her hair plaited, 
   his mouth opening. My parents 
   have stopped singing, too. 
 
   At the Colossi on the West Bank 
   where we leaned our hired bikes 
   and Dad's ka went out 
   of control for lack of sugar 
   (sugar stirring ...