Say
the nerve ends glisten
as stark neuronal turquoise
not as nervous hatchery
but as evolutive emblem hatching via proto-memory
prior to the wastes of the Cambrian electrification
unleashing being
being mystery as the soilless body
reaching back to non-existent amplification compounded as proto-statistic that remains uncountable
as hallucinatory proto-body
unleashing being as its own being
its channel alive as electrical compounding
as spurious trilogies
as spur to the unknown
as possible horseshoe crab
being curious electrical hatchery
before the drought of ideology as discipline
the latter we know as nerves according to civil compunction
not rival oblong statute
or claim as summoned ambrosia
being dazed human alacrity
yet I'm thinking of bursts as patterns
not in a prone or optical sense
but in the manner that starfish ignite their crescents as neon
Will Alexander is a poet, novelist, essayist, aphorist, playwright, philosopher, visual artist, and pianist. He is a recipient of a California Arts Council Fellowship, a PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and a Whiting Fellowship, among many others. He has taught at several universities, including the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and the University of California San Diego. He lives in California.