Which came first,
the sperm or the egg,
God or the ape
or the Ape God?
Which was it,
the nose coming round the corner
or the fingers on top of the wall?
Was it foot prints
filling with water
or an elbow holding the door
for the tray carrying tea
from India
or linen for a guest’s bed,
a cry or a crown
of the head,
hairs plastered with baptism juice?

In the procession of birth,
the shockwave, the flash of bright
heat, the skin cells falling
in sheets, the cushion of fat,
the pneumatics of breath,
hydraulics of blood, mechanicals
of tendons, muscle and bone,
lights industries – lungs and entrails –,
the wonders of anatomy,
was it
the working of a mind
on a float by of consciousness,
day’s scalpel piercing the curtains
to a blackbird accompaniment
that was first
or was it
the hair in the meeting places,
odour of bio-electric magnetism,
a new hard and a new soft,
rolling hills, cliffs,
water drum kits on rocks,
lighthouses like oak trees
all caught in one breath.

In the parade of delivery,
is it the leopard skinned band leader
juggling his wand
or the wound round of a rod
as a yarn is told
that precedes?

It all comes first.
It’s a wave front of birth.
Under thunderous samba clouds
knees pull shins and feet
over hurdles of beats,
hands hold together in prayer
or cradle water
to splash
a closed face awake,
an eye begins to open
small as a splinter of tear drop
on a lash, a tarn
in a mountain of other,
looking continues to find,
blows up a thin film of lick
of the world, of sky
and dark matter,
like a bubble on a pipe
of optic nerve.

Disturbing the blast fronts
your friends should be known as,
your birth is an explosion
that’s still going on
and long may it continue
to do so.

ZQ
(1st read at Nick DD’s Birthday Celebration 11/06/2011)