The Author, Karl William Anthony Zuelke, B.A., B.S., M.F.A., Ph.D., Playing an Emergent Meta-Natural 810-Step Strange-Looping Figure in Red:
Cosmology
“What the ?”
or
“Whats it all about?” and,
“That,” of course, “is the question.”
While Hamlet
precedes my friend Dirk Stratton
by a clean four centuries
and has garnered much of the credit—
usurping even the Greeks for phrasing
the question in terms having now captured
the popular English-speaking imagination—
Dirk, nevertheless, says it
(as he certainly must have)
best when he recapitulates a number
of meta-post/-structuralist post-
modern/modern post
whatever ontological
whatevers:
“What the...?”
Astrophysics
What it is is that
isn't there an end to the universe
where what is gives way to what isn't?
Starting close to the sun
in our Journey Across the Universe
jai guru deva am
(Astro barks:
RRI rron't rrow rranyrring
arrout rrhysics, Rrirk...)
planetary orbits demonstrate
demonstrable and admirable
regularity orbiting on satisfactory
timetables like turntables
Newton, as is reported in her recently unearthed diary by his amorous and frustrated scullery maid, Mehitabel Dopplet,
loved dried fruit,
especially dried plums and especially
apples
Plums are great
Apples good
All he ate
Was fruitful food.
“ But no dry fruit could loosen poor Newton,”
writes the good Miss Dopplet.
Einstein was a meat and potatoes man.
He relished a good matzoh ball
now and again and even a solid German
leberknüdel
centered like the sun in an orbiting
and liverish broth.
Despite all this
Einstein was relatively quick.
Geology
Tectonically speaking:
the Great Continents float
over the fluid and gelatinous
mantle like
broken Styrofoam in the creek.
“Fluid and gelatinous from a geological standpoint Earth's structures well may be,” Dirk tells us, “but when I fell down and cracked my head on this big old chunk of solid granite rock it sure did hurt like heck, telling me that either the Earth is hard rather than gelatinous or I'm relatively a flabby softy, which certainly may be the case, though I exercise strenuously from time to time.”
“Resist Gravity:
the Earth Sucks.”
Africa once spooned South America
All his attention on the warm, moist
Mouth of the Amazon
And the tender pleasures waiting up
That deep, soft river.
Big Blue Marble.
Third Planet from Sun.
Home Sweet Home.
Ecology
The postmodern science, founded not
on essences but on relationships.,
Thethe term coined by Ernst Haekel in 1869
from the Greek roots
oikos (home) + logos (word).
In the B ginning was the logos,
and the logos was oikos.
God, I'm home.
I'm rubber
You're glue
Anything you say
Bounces off me
And sticks to you.
When a butterfly flaps its wings in California
Will it start to rain in Peru?...
No...If a butterfly flaps its wings in California
It might rain in Peru...but...Peru has thousands of square miles of rain
forest, so it rains there all the time!
So...if a butterfly flaps its wings over California
Will it initiate a chain of events that cause it to rain in Phoenix?
But it hardly ever rains in Phoenix
and there are millions and millions
of butterflies flapping all over California
every day, so this doesn't seem likely...
Grass fixes CO2 in the presence of water and sunlight.
Grasshopper eats grass.
Praying mantis eats grasshopper.
Robin eats praying mantis.
Coyote eats robin.
Human shoots coyote with 12-gauge
Hangs its carcass on barbed wire fence.
Maggots eat coyote.
Zoology Botany
albatross acacia
ani adder's tongue
avocet agrimony
bittern alumroot
blackbird amaranth
bluebill amaryllis
bluebird anemone
bobolink arbutus
booby arrowheadaster
brant asterazalea
bulbul azaleabastard toadflax
bunting barberrybeardtongue
caracara bayberry
cardinal bastard toadflax
catbird bearberry
chachalaca beardtongue
chaffinch bedstraw
chat bee balm
chickadee beechdrops
coot beetleweed
cormorant bellflower
cowbird bellwort
crake bergamot
crane bittersweet
crossbill black-eyed Susan
crow bladderwort
cuckoo bleeding heart
curlew bloodroot
dickcissel bluebells
dovekie bluebonnet
dove blue-eyed grass
dowitcher blue-eyed Mary
duck bluestem
dunlin boneset
eagle bouncing Bet
egret broomrape
eider bugbane
falcon buttercup
finch butterwort
flamingo camas
flicker campion
flycatcher catchfly
gadwall catnip
gallinule celandine
garganey chamomile
gnatcatcher chickweed
goose chicory
goshawk chokecherry
grackle cinquefoil
grebe clover
greenshank cohosh
grosbeak coltsfoot
guillemot columbine
gyrfalcon daisy
harrier dandelion
hawk dock
heron dogbane
hummingbird Dutchman's breeches
ibis elderberry
jacana everlasting
jackdaw eyebright
jaeger featherbells
junco figwort
kestrel fireweed
killdeer flax
kingbird foxtail
kinglet garlic
kite gentian
kittiwake geranium
knot gilia
lapwing ginseng
limpkin goldentseal
linnet haw
longspur henbit
loon hepatica
magpie horsemint
martin Indian paintbrush
merganser indigo
merlin Jack-in-the-pulpit
murre Jacob's ladder
noddy jessamine
nuthatch Joe-pye weed
oldsquaw ladies' tresses
oriole lady's slipper
osprey lamb's quarters
ovenbird lobelia
owl lungwort
oystercatcher madder
partridge manroot
parula monkshood
pelican nettle
petrel nightshade
pewee orchis
phalarope parsnip
phoebe pennyroyal
pipit peppermint
plover phlox
pochard pipsissewa
ptarmigan plantain
puffin pogonia
pyrrhuloxia pokeweed
quail poppy
rail pussytoes
redpoll Queen Anne's Lace
redshanks ragweed
redstart rattlebox
roadrunner rhodora
ruff rue
sanderling sarsaparilla
sandpiper sawbrier
sapsucker sea rocket
sawbill senna
scaup shinleaf
scoter shooting star
shearwater sicklepod
shoveler skullcap
shrike skunk cabbage
siskin smartweed
skimmer snakeroot
skua sneezeweed
smew snowberry
snipe Solomon's seal
sora sorrel
spindalis Spanish bayonet
spoonbill spatterdock
sprig speedwell
squealer spicebush
stilt spiderwort
stork spikenard
swallow spring beauty
swan spurge
swift stonecrop
tanager sumac
teal sunflower
tern sweetflag
thrasher tansy
thrush teasel
tit thistle
towhee tickseed
turkey trefoil
veery timothy
verdin toadflax
vireo trillium
vulture valerian
warbler verbena
waxwing vetch
wheatear violet
whimbrel wake-robin
whip-poor-will watercress
whistler waterleaf
wigeon whitlow grass
woodcock wintergreen
woodpecker witch hazel
wren wolfsbane
yellowlegs yarrow
yellowthroat yucca
(these are just birds) (these are just flowers)
“THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG.”
Sponges—spongy.
Coelenterates—water bags.
Flatworms—flat.
Roundworms—round.
Segmented Worms
Annelids—segmented.
Arthropods—jointed.
Echinoderms—radially symmetric.
Mollusks—shelled. Some intelligent.
Chordates—Internally braced.
PhysiologyAtoms
Gathered carefully
with slow, painstaking effort,
carefully one brilliant
mote
at a time.
Collected from the dirt
by the point ends
of hairs,
snatched
from the air
light-glued green,
held line tight,
laid out in hairs
veins
in a mesh network.
A complex
a collective enterprise building
structures,
collecting itself.
Builds
Tubes. Veins gather
momentum, grow
and swell, produce
living volume need
to swell
and peak in
one
white
seed.
Biophysics, Biochemistry
In the campus clinic, once,
admitted due to a serious case of flu,
delirious with fever,
Dirk felt he suddenly understood the origin of life:
It had something or other to do with cell membranes
and Radio City Music Hall—
long carbon molecules with hydrophilic heads
and hydrophobic tails arranged
like a double line of chorus girls, kicking
toward the waving, aqueous audience
who, given the chance, would most gladly, one at a time,
detach a single girl from the line
ionically escort her to his hotel room
and gently but insistently show her
the meaning of “hydrophilic.”
But the girls remain covalently bonded
arm in arm, living an entertaining life of their own.
Eventually, Dirk was released.
He totally forgot the origin of life
but wound up even more interested
in the means of originating a life.
Hydrophilic till he dies, baby!
Genetics
Peas porridge hot
Peas porridge cold
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old.
Peas porridge wrinkled
Peas porridge smooth
Peas porridge
Peas, peas, peas, peas,
Breeding Mendel's peas.
Goodness how recessive
Breeding Mendel's peas.
porridge
Enzymes split open the DNA molecule, forming a template for the construction of
mRNA.
mRNA migrates from the nucleus to the cytoplasm.
mRNA passes over the ribosomes, which direct the assembly of proteins by lining up
tRNA molecules along the mRNA template, each tRNA having an anticodon at one end and a specific amino acid attached at the other.
Amino acids line up to make enzymes.
Enzymes catalyze the formation of other proteins.
Proteins build tissues.
Tissues build organs.
Organs organize into organ systems.
Organ systems build the organism.
Organism becomes conscious.
Consciousness gives rise to spirituality and the ecstatic awareness of organism's
relationship with a loving, living God.
Organism rejects God in favor of pleasure, wealth and power.
Organism fights other organisms for more and more pleasure, wealth and power.
Organism develops weapons.
Weapons organize into weapon systems.
Weapon systems are used to kill all other organisms.
Great masses of non-living organisms decompose.
Biosphere reduces to unordered, irradiated chemical soup.
Return to BiophysicsBiochemistry and begin again.
Chemistry
Mmm good—mmm good—
That's what Chemical soups are
Mmm good!
“I have this chemical aversion to chemistry,”
Dirk tells us, possessing a language-based
and somewhat associative, as opposed to rational, linear,
cause-and-effect, mind.
“But I'll roll a doob now and then,” he adds
“and I do like cold beer,” showing that
Dirk understands at least something of chemistry
quite well regarding the linear chemical effects
of certain compounds on his central nervous system.
Eenie meenie minee mo
Catch an atom by his toe
If ht hollers don't let go
Eenie meenie minee mo
My mother says that you are not it
For this very next molecule.
Subatomic Particle Physics
Quarks and muons!
Top and gluons!
Somebody show me the eight-fold way.
Leptons, baryons, gravitons
Superstrings and Faraday!
Eleven dimensions now and counting
Particles, particles, numbers mounting...
Strange or charm!
Up or bottom!
Neutrinos and taus like fountains founting!
“This doesn't make any sense at all!”
Dirk laments. “There's nothing
Fundamental here at all.” “Like a Klein bottle,
Insides twisting seamlessly
Onto out, small-scale physics drops
Off the edge of formal knowledge
Back into cosmology” (Powers 88).
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circles just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
“What the ...?”
Works Cited
Powers, Richard. The Gold Bug Variations. New York: William Morrow, 1991.
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