Soft Warm Smooth And Conscious

Is a line I stole from the poem Priapic Hymn
By Philip Whalen who apparently took the time
To celebrate slippery dong and balls all over
The appeal of this line if it is not apparent already
Is the lovely way it sums up the feeling of being
Alive and human a mammal with hair and legs
Testicles toenails fingernails opposable thumbs
Eyes ears nose a torso a cock a pair of shoulders
With a head on top thinking thoughts about consciousness
It’s my favorite topic my biggest fascination
My hypothesis concerning consciousness is this
As soon as nerves evolved a feeling of being alive blossomed
Out of what I’m not sure a glop of protein
That grew into stalks and eyeballs
And needed to eat to say alive and so went looking
For something to eat which requires a small degree
Of planning and strategy an organism is largely urged
To interact with the environment out of a desire to eat
Or procreate the whole thing is baffling what’s the purpose of it all
Where does it lead the planet is dying there are too many humans
         on it
You cannot say human intelligence developed so as to maintain
         balance
That clearly is not the case the planet is dying
From too many wars too much oil dug up and burned into the air
Radioactivity ignorance greed cruelty madness veins squirting
         blood
Bones protruded cadavers everywhere in the street
Rock stars riding in limousines dictators eating pretzels figure
         skaters
Twirling on Helsinki ice all aglitter all awhirl and why not it’s
         pretty
We all begin as an embryo a multicellular glop of neurons and glial
         cells
Which later turn into a dentist or dictator depending on a
         confluence
Of circumstances called destiny when the mouth develops a
         thought
Of raw sienna the need for expression is partially redeemed
In the movements of a brush on the surface of a canvas
Or a series of words written down on a sheet of paper or pumped
Into sound in the form of speech which is another form of
         gestation
The syllable is an embryo the sentence is a fetus a paragraph is a
         giraffe
Or elephant or ape or homo sapiens male or female Elton John or
         Lady Gaga