Monday, September 2, 2013

ediacara

I light on the page
the stone page - a dull buff slab
and admire the pattern there
the traces of old intelligence
presssd leaf hard into a palm frond
(an frog = amphiborian)
those bitter ediacara days
were bellsweather of cambarian genesis
 you crawl out from under a rock
 and are crushed immediately punctured
 by the back hand of (r)evolution

translate that antient tongue
and it sounds like something like-
plasmosis egregious fidgit smearl
the trilobyte dial in a research laboratory
flickering - lobed antennae prehistoric
space vehicles their particular designs
 long out of fashion
badly parked and mysteriously
in the empty playground
bonnet up, half smashed
one is eating another one
was it a plant? was it a fish?


the fine sand brushes off
my skin like Aristophanes lantern
cold and pliant rolls of wiggly pinkish rubber
a giant storm front rolling over the tundra
of snowball earth
its oceans formless unwound clouds
a goddess large and multiformulae
pinching earwigs in molasses
perfectiform classic shapes
just like in class, the slight bob
of nugigerulous forms, heads, noses
ears, but never eyes -
though some might have had five eyes

we take but we also give

building a huge house - or is it a ship?
made out of timber beams, a little room just here
for you and me
and the baby three
mankind constructs his fire-stair into the sky
spirular in form, part gold, part airy matter
the code for many future things
is being transcribed today - it is only ever
transcription, never creation
blessed it is to be the transcriptor
blessed it is to understand the code
to unwind it and wind it up again
on this pink little finger
blessed.