Prose & cons / Trilobites bite

1.

A necklace of live crabs
       before the odds
how did they live
       cowardly estimations
the earliest known examples
       street-crossing sideways blind
dramatic changes in climate & chemistry
       steady small gains
union of geological sciences
       until the blow-up
discovered at Mistaken Point
       a moral hazard
mouth, anus, shells and hard parts
       trusted but sterile information

nature usually sneezes on our hopes
       unclean, clearly not actors
yellowing ivory of peaches and cream
       sweet and suicidal
the report evolved in a snowslide
       firm in principle
fossilized credit jelly
       mismatching scales
foraged for uncontaminated sponges
       a level of expectations
bringing the stone back home
       two systems in the mind
a foundational document
       or a more intuitive

plea for fellowship a national shame
       different development
a false view of chronicle as practice
       a round medallion
gift for visual bias unavoidable and sheer
       looking left and right
everyone's favourite invertebrate fossil and dust
       expectation of repeated images
the anatomies of advanced arthropods
       a perception of the new normal
fusion differentiation specialization
       modelling trust
a tale of decimation not increasing variety of design
       how ideas can be bad for you

would you rather love a greyhound or a jellyfish
       framing the evidence
discomfort when we view them eating
       killing more than they help
the power of a question mark
       tripling the chance of death
blood always ready to leap
       quacks but nevertheless
basically elongate bilaterally symmetrical
       leeches, worms and their food all alike
like to know where they are going and move away from what they leave behind
       a fact well known by empiricists
such as a great appendage, whiplike
       less nice than currently

and forming the most precious of human continuities.



2.

The unbroken skein of intellectal genealogy
       never replicates out of sample
disparity followed by decimation
       not computable from data
a different story revealed by the heretofore invisible soft body
       eighty percent away from normal

repeated emergence of predation as strategy
       no different from astrology
top level fully occupied and functioning
       value at risk as value
the subsequent decimation and consequent modern pattern
       that we prefer to ignore

leaving something for the evening to reveal
       a freak out between the dark and the light
conceived the world in metaphor
       we have predictions countered the institution
experimentation reigned in a world
       without the concept of consequence

virtually free of competition for the one and only time
       hands clenched or tucked in a
slower process of competition and displacement
       starting to bet down to zero
a change in organic potential
       increasing exposure to the total

becoming less forgiving of major restructuring
       the system was getting a lot more efficient
webs of interaction not easily broken
       until the sudden emergence of a black swan
his shrill ancestral convictions
       a song sung once aloud, a hundred times a losing whisper

patter the most profound of the great dyings.