Writing Problems: On Not Being Able to Write

Amphimixis

The “bird man” of Lascaux was painted by our ancestors on a cave wall in France more than 17,000 years ago. These artists ground manganese oxide for black; iron oxide for red, violet, and yellow; porcelain for white; and copper oxide for blue. Their pictures are a window into their world: one as sophisticated as our own, but one much more connected to reality. 

We don’t know these artists’ names, but their stories are as modern as ours. The Lascaux bird man is lying flat and has an erection. To his right is a bison with a spear stuck in its side, guts spilling. To his left is a bird standing on a stick or pole pooping, and beyond that, a rhinoceros, also pooping.

Lascaux bird man

There have been many interpretations of what this picture means, but I think the most compelling version is that it’s a visual poem: the man is dreaming. Anyone will tell you that sometimes when men dream they get aroused (and the dream doesn’t need to be sexual, either), and in bird man’s dream he’s killed the bison, and life goes on because life insists on violence. 

Whether he literally killed the bison, bird, or rhinoceros is not the point (if it was, this would be the world’s first news article). What is still possible is in the dream life, and what is still possible is in the life of the poem.