BIOSPHERE

                   Life is a disease of inanimate matter,

                   a blight

                   infecting the skin of the earth,

                   infesting

                   air,

                   water,

                   earth

                   where the soft hordes crawl.

                   There are two decompositions:

                        first a disorganisation of top-heavy molecules

                   in primal seas

                        when matter began to suffer,

                        to pullulate

                        like a curse

                        hurled by a spiteful demiurge;

                        ‘Let there be eructations, flati,

                        the soft ache of flesh!

                        Be fruitful and multiply

                        in a dizzy kaleidoscope

                        of being, becoming nothing

                        before the final desiccation.

                        Thin scum contaminating the face of the world,

                        a skin disorder, a macrocosmic acne!'

                        Then,

                        to end each organism,

                        the decomposition is decomposed,

                        the errant elements returned

                        to random unsuffering configurations.

                        The end is nigredo,

                        a swelling up for the massive post mortem fart.

                        Traces of tissue in putrefaction

                        for a while

                        stain the ground.

                   Man,

                   superscum,

                   erects its exoskeleton of ferro-concrete.

                   There it stands on the top of the pile.

                   'I'm the king of the heap

                   and you're the dirty microbes!'

                   Such a clever animal:

                    it can walk on its hindlegs;

                   you can track it by its droppings,

                   neat balls

                   of calculus,

                   metaphysics,

                   poetry,

                   genetic engineering,

                   computer science

                   excreted brilliantly

                   by a race of pygmies.

                        Generations of dwarfs

                   stand precariously on each other's shoulders,

                   in each skull a hideous grey flower,

                   a tumour,

                   cerebral fungus,

                   ant-heap achievement.

                   Some day life will die:

                   the gigantic column of dwarfs will fall;

                   the last phylum will rot

                   and earth-suffering will end.