GOING WITH THIS
up
down
vertical lateral
throw me a lateral, tell
me where
we
are going
with this
what brain flashes
will consolidate
translate into
paper, paper
with markings
(English
not Martian
as in
some bizarre
alien postcard)
how it will all
all evolve
grow, take shape
find its genre, its species,
whole
poet biology
spawn of some sort
seed set there
but
sewn
up
every stitched
ripe for receipt
SPECIES
maybe
as they
deepen
these divides
and dichotomies
are
not going to plunge the world
into civil war
upon civil war
no
we could
find ourselves
saved from self-
annihilation by the advent
of the
simple, planet-saving,
evolutionary solution
allowing us
to species-split along
all seams,
do the most natural thing
become
as many kinds of hominid
as there are stars
in the firmament
since it seems impossible
that such an
outcome
will scarcely allow
us to
treat each other worse
than we
do now
or as
unequally, unjustly, and, yes,
genocidally
DOLPHIN
ah! the ease, the effortlessness,
this dream is what you get
with being streamlined,
by
thinking
free and deep
final shape emerging
through that brutal process
of secret, significant,
implicit choices
taking the evolutionary path
of torpedo, missile,
submarine
and here
we have it
the latest model, built
for speed bursts, leaps zig-zagging
at will across
the prow
pretty breathtaking for
us as we
negotiate those swells
make our little journey
and you
sewing it together, stitching
every seam
sea, beach,
cloud, mountain suddenly
fused, welded
together
glimpse for a moment
into a
close but distinct
different Universe where
gravity seems
not
to apply
and of friction
there be no need
DARWIN 4
I like
to think of myself
of a Victorian naturalist
shot out
of a cannon
into the future
through
space and time into
distant and
bizarre
Goldilocks Zone
to find
myself
taking a stroll like
Imperial British Gentlemen
walking on the
surface of an
alien planet
they
happened to
name after me
freshly equipped with
all my conversions
retractable legs, compound
eyes, downloaded intelligence
and full
hover capabilities
carrying me across the
needle-spine badlands,
the acid seas and lakes
of mercury
looking for
the planet’s raw nerve,
scouring every niche
for signs of
life, impending
intelligence,
hints of the biological
foundations of
new civilizations and
their
inevitable cities
of deep, incandescent pain.
IF THE OCEAN
if the ocean
is anything to go by
abundance
of life forms can
be no garden
of Eden
that sincere English gentleman
categorizing beaks, making
all the measurements
seeing a big picture no one
had previously seen
purpose working
across a timescale unimaginable
dead on lucid
the mind evolved to see this
peering into the inexorable
mind and
heart of life
throwing all those arbitrary
constellations into an
extremity of quandry
playing havoc with all our
tales and fables, deepest
metaphors of design
PROUDLY
proudly
exactly at the moment
when angels fell
he
stood up
on his hind legs
put away
monkey business, childish
things
dropped
his prehensile tale
at which,
clock started ticking
for all obedience points
accrued
for infraction
points dropped
strewed the veld
with the detritus of
every hunter-
gatherer
later agricultural event
leaving bones to
be picked
by such as
Dawkins and Harari
bounding across new landscapes
from horizon
to horizon
virus
of conquest
so much space to acquire
MONKEY BUSINESS
’68, year of the Monkey
what if there were
no Space Odyssey
no Moonwatcher to watch
the students of the Sorbonne
turn France
upside-down
overhead, somehow lost
in the inaccessible recesses
Overlook labyrinth
of HAL’S digital memory,
there is no
continuity error in space
no ninety degree offset
in every planetary alignment
no fabulous match cut,
best there
has ever been
and incredible other
incredible leap by
the Kubrick imagination
Star Child spawned of monolith
floating back
from Jupiter down to
our so shabby planet
to tell us
that the cosmos is our
mirror and our future
written
as if on a screen by
end of
the journey, last self
our evolution
pure promise of our becoming
true
immaculate machine
JUNGLE GYM
I ate my jungle oats
you are your jungle oats
you ate my jungle oats
I ate your jungle oats
we ate our own and
each other’s jungle oats
not at the watering hole
but in bed together
you telling me that aliens
came to this planet Janet
tens of thousands of
years ago
as is recorded on
scroll and parchment
to build the pyramids
and screw
our woman
the former with sonic resonance
and photon matter creation
technology
maybe, safe to say,
pretty much
the latter too
and you trying to tell
me that
Noah’s Ark was actually
a saucer-shaped vehicle
(like alien craft on the cover
of an
Amazing Stories 50s Sci-Fi
magazine)
nothing more lewd or leering
than one of those aliens
desperate for
the feeling of humanoid
tits and shit
and me making all sorts
of irreverent and disgusting
sexual puns
during the entirety of
her discourse
obviously not the kind of
civilized fore and interplay
that would lead
with neat evolutionary
procreative logic
to our own little
trans-linguistic
conjugation
and most
intimate and
nearest thing
to
cosmic encounter of
way more
than three-dimensional kind
poems 2 die for