The Drawing Came First

A rippling underneath –
a symmetry of neural network –
coalescing of a shape in chaos –
chaos which is never chaos –
circling, looping, swooping
into, out of, over and below
a strange complex insistent flow
in which the nature of all meaning
seems to wink –
you grab at it in outline:

in a blink
it slips away
but leaves a residue
which speaks to you:
tells you to go off again into the cloud
in whose amorphousness
a pod of porpoises allows
you just a fleeting view
of form: a phallus
or a palace –

the fractal lure of sex,
a vexed perplexity
which just as soon
as you’ve accepted it
resumes pursuit
of a geometry
beneath
the whole
damned
thing.

A man could sing.

.