The Geologic Time of Your Life

 

I.https://cdn.britannica.com/s:700x450/66/131666-004-E06E3168.jpg

evolving, thunder-struck

amino eventualities

and bio-potentialities

in the muck

re-group, protoplasmic and joyful

singing in the proverbial soup

of circumstances

and random cosmic chances

a song of differentiation

loose ends / ragged strands / loose lines

of poetry: DNA spiral dances

Precambrian time, period of time extending from about 4.6 billion years ago (the point at which Earth began to form) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, 541 million years ago. Precambrian time encompasses the Archean and Proterozoic eons, which are formal geologic intervals

II.

the wriggling one-celled poet decides

to become complex

takes its time:

geologic / astral eons

twitching and failing

into the fabled tadpole of adaptation

to a godless universe, diverse

in its variegated futility

this idea has been summarized in the mouthful, ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’, which means the development of the individual embryo repeats its alleged evolutionary history. The first thing to say about this dictum, is that ‘law’ it is not!

III.

our fish, now fowl,

proclaims its Archaeopteryx manifesto

standing on Precambrian banks

demanding a return on its investment

in sedimentary overlays:

Ernst Haeckel ! shrieks the avian jokester

The Imaginary Monera: the eating habit and reproductive cycle of an alleged Moneron to which he gave the scientific name, Protomyxa aurantiaca 73 pages of his speculations more important than facts and evidence.

IV.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Haeckel_Anthropogenie_1874.jpg/330px-Haeckel_Anthropogenie_1874.jpg

into the long long corridors

of time’s bad poetry

sleeping off the tadpole nightmare

sprouting flippers, legs, digits, wings

deciding to fly, smashing antediluvian cedars with trilobite tail

upright biped sporting body-hair you shall prevail

descending from trees in African dreams

misanthropologically erect

gracile / robust (that’s us)

Hey turn that shit up ! yells Piltdown Man

from his evolutionary window

He believed that the only major difference between man and the ape was that men could speak and apes could not. He therefore postulated a missing link which he called Pithecanthropus alalus (speechless apeman) a woman with long lank hair suckling a child.

V.

falling for the lies

of the Lord of the Flies

Zinjanthropus asks quizzically

How much more of this

are you prepared to take ?

misbegotten centuries glimmer:

light years of bad poetry

captive eons of incoherent free verse

as we wait

for the Bronze Age Myths

to begin

 

PROMPT #3: a poem that takes time. It takes its time getting where it’s going, and the action of the poem itself takes place over months.
[…] a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time.

 

Honestly, this is the type of modernist poetry I dislike.
I wrote it in about 25 minutes, edited and formatted it
with found text & images for about 40 minutes and VOILÀ:
cutting-edge modern dullness
. It was still fun though.

TEXT/IMAGE CREDITS: creation.com
wikipedia
britannica.com

 

 

3 comments on “The Geologic Time of Your Life

  1. Clearly, you will have to try a little harder to write ACTUALLY bad poetry (try typing with your nose and “forget” to edit, maybe?). I love the direction you took the prompt. This really starts ab ovo, and as such — also, I believe, because of the tongue-in-cheek touch — reminds me of Tristram Shandy. A wild ride evolution (devolution?). I very much enjoyed the read!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Desdi says:

      Thanks!
      I’ll take your readership over blogfuls of poetasters any day. But seriously, I tried to do the kind of avant-vapid poem that NaPoWriMo likes to promote.
      Fun but too easy.

      Liked by 1 person

      • I hear you! Looking at some of the things being published today, I do not trust the poetasters as far as I can throw them…whenever there is a mention of not to worry about editing, I want to punch something!

        Like

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