Know what I haven’t done in a while? A sestina!
Boom! Up to date in time to start #napowrimo.
Sestinas often bring out the philosopher in me.
The human body is a splendid thing –
Not just an animated bag of blood
A framework coated in pulsating meat
Nor just a neat conveyance for your brain;
It’s both, and it is so much more besides:.
A thinking, feeling, breathing work of art.
But can a body be a work of art?
A body is a scientific thing
Evolved from primal soup, which had no brain
Is this a place where art and science meet?
Where inspiration courses in the blood
What’s art and what is science? Who decides?
Creation? Evolution? Different sides
To this conundrum. Can we call it art
And not see a creator? Here’s the thing
You can admire the beauty of the brain
And know that it’s just complicated meat
But that’s the sort of thing that makes the blood
- .
Of certain people boil. There will be blood
If we deny god. Everyone takes sides!
“It’s merely science!” “No, it’s clearly art!”
They really love to fight over this thing:
I wish that either side would use their brain
And see that these two schools of thought can meet:
A body can’t be art. It’s made of meat
But inspiration courses through the blood
No wait, that’s oxygen, that is the thing
The blood carries around. It isn’t art!
But that does not quite mean I’m taking sides
The place that art is found is in the brain
And sometimes, somehow, we forget the brain
Is just as much a lump of pulsing meat
As any other organ. And the blood
That feeds it helps it think, and it decides
That what it wants to do is make some art
So art is born of science, that’s the thing!
So everything that comes out of your brain
Was fed by blood and brought about by meat
So who decides what’s science and what’s art.
Tom Juniper Poetry 