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This is the story of iceman Oetzi:
A cold case murder mystery
Where the world's oldest blood has dried
The crime preserved, mummified
In a mountain village long ago
A traveller came down from the snow
He is welcomed and offered sustenance
As they listen eagerly to his accounts
But with his tales of nomadic life
Oetzi charmed another man's wife
The jealous husband was dismayed
And scored the visitor with a blade
Oetzi apologised, moved on, bade farewell
But the wife had changed and all could tell
She took on a mournful distant look
So the man wanted Oetzi brought to book
This interloper caused him loss of face
How dare he challenge his rightful place
Enraged he sets off , bow in hand
Towards the high alpine pastureland
The wanderer strolled on unaware
Far above the meadows, into cooler air
Then Oetzi sat: he had dined his last
He reflected on the women in his past
She was the one: in the valley below
It only took one look to know
But she belonged to another man
And Oetzi respected this higher plan
Musing as he climbed the glacier
One day perhaps he would again see her
(If he turned back now he would have seen
The villager turned killing machine)
Still tracking the stranger for cruel revenge
Three hundred years before Stonehenge
Above his rasping mountain breath
Oetzi did not hear the arrowed death
Punctured by that fatal blow
Oetzi laid gasping in the crimson snow
His killer eschewed the copper axe
He wanted to leave no fossil tracks
And maybe underneath that ancient sky
The murderer stood and watched Oetzi die
To hear familiar words in an ancient tongue
"Why my brother? - I did you no wrong..."
This is a story as old as time
Forever frozen above the treeline
Man's cold hatred, built to kill
Nothing changes, time stands still
Stephen A. Roberts
