I.
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.
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.
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