[Though I finished 17 only a few days ago, I have already started work on a third long poem, entitled 200. This new poem is based–very loosely–on the recent nerve-agent poisonings in Salisbury, England. I apologize, yet again, for the dark theme. That is–like it or not–what I do as a poet. This first half of the prologue is entitled boringly Prologue Part 1 and introduces some of the poem’s overarching motifs.]

200 (1)

Prologue Part 1

Body and brain

are a bag of nerves,

glia and astrocytes,

electrolytic fluids flitting

& flowing

back and forth

across the gaps of synapses,

flickering between flight

and fright, being and

not-being, singularity

and reproduction, irrigating

mitochondrial DNA. Division,

multiplication, addition

and subtraction do their dirty

snipping work

on stems, cells, genes, nerves,

memes, nation-states and social relations.

And the Yggdrasil that blossoms

in the gray matter of the mind’s eye

has its roots in the blood-tainted bludgeons,

bullets, balls, lips, tooth and claw,

by which its trunk is nourished, undermined

and finally undone.