Penetrabit: Slime-Temples

by Rob Hardin

Life is a disease of matter.
--Goethe

I
30 cm. of creeping protoplasm,
absently gibbering spirals, hexahedrons, hillocks, trills
may indicate an autocatalytic reaction.
And the hypnotic figurations of nerve axons-

Receptive, active, quiescent-
turn like scrolls of electrolyzed plasma.
Both substances reveal a talent for spatial organization:
their dead thrashings trace patterns of cerebral complexity.

Similarly, the contractions of human heart muscle
resemble a wave spreading outward.
When the wave is broken, heart fibrillations
exhibit persistent patterns. And, often

these autocatalytic spirals of disease
are attended by failure and death.

II
The surface of the brain
may also erupt in a necropolis of spirals.
Reverberating cortical depression
brings with it a pattern of self-propagating forms.

Even a disc galaxy follows this rococo pathology:
its tentacles of stars are ragged whorls.
A parahuman architect is endless sketching cochlear temples to its own vacant energies.

If god is dead, he is dressed as a tendrillar Louis XIV,
and his fingers are twitching.

Revelation

Earlier this week, I experienced a religious revelation.

I was reading a truly depressing article about the economy in the NYT and listening to Take a Bow by Muse, and God talked to me. I felt a tingling of strange energy, and I felt a urge to stand up. I stretched out my arms, looking up towards some strange, invisible light. I began to tremble, and as the song hit its climax, I fell into my bed, and received this message.

"We are fucked. We have put our faith in a system which is smoke and mirrors, and it is falling apart. All debts are being called in, and we cannot cover them. You were too clever by half, and nows its going to fuck you up."

"Switch your portfolio to gold and guns."

Fortunately, I am an atheist, and don't have to listen to God.