magnetic resonance imaging w.i.p. iii

With the meter/rhyme scheme established, but not too rigidly enforced, the construction of the poem is becoming easier. Here is how what has been written reads:

Mazes, spark plugs, forests, thruways make us cognoscenti
An arabesque or two or four comprise an idiom
Gendarmic membranes won’t enshroud nor would they be placenta
Nor would they glad participate in telepathic gleaning

It is kindasorta iambic septameter, but the first line is trochaic. Sonnets will sometimes tack a syllable on the end of a line, and if you do that, you are being “non-heroic” because landing right on the correct last syllable is called “heroic.” (Similarly, quantum physicists use terms like “charm” and “strange” and “spin.” Words ALWAYS fail, to some degree, to echo Reality.)

Line 1: the “mazes, spark plugs, forests, thruways” referred to are failing-badly approximations of brain structures. Probably the best of this sad lot is “spark plugs,” which analogizes the superstructure of the synapse.

Line 2: from the Merriam-Webster definition of Arabesque: “1 : an ornament or style that employs flower, foliage, or fruit and sometimes animal and figural outlines to produce an intricate pattern of interlaced lines. 2 : a posture (as in ballet) in which the body is bent forward from the hip on one leg with one arm extended forward and the other arm and leg backward.” Line 2 crudely describes brain-embroidery in the imagining of a more advanced form of expression than the starkly descriptive.

Line 3: I owe “Gendarmic” to Robert Heinlein: in his apocalyptic story “The Year of the Jackpot” he has Potiphar Breen refer to big rock pillars on a mountain as Gendarmes. Gendarme is a French noun meaning Guard. And the corpus callosum, the separator of the brain hemispheres, may be viewed as a guardian of electrical activity between the hemispheres. (I hope I’m not being TOTALLY inaccurate here, but I’m certain my analogy is off the mark to some degree. Poetic License!!)

Line 4 mentions Telepathy, a probably mythical phenomenon in the literal sense. It means Mind-Reading, that is, the ability to listen to thoughts. Some people can read body language so well that they have an idea of what a person is thinking, but there is no hard evidence that telepathy exists. Certainly there is a wealth of anecdotal accounts of alleged telepathy, but I for one don’t believe it exists.

Since all the principal drawing for this page has been done, all that remains before final cleanup is to finish the poem. It’s quite likely that the next stage will be the finished page. We can hope! 🙂