• Vol. 02
  • Chapter 07
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The central processing unit is a myth

Over this curve, toward the cerebellum, electrical with pinkicity,
frightening and firing, is Artemis – proud and bright and
free, and winning a fight over my father,
over a city, over a nation-state.
And the owl and the pussycat and the shield and the moon –
all are right in their righteousness.
Before the medulla oblongata fires, the body, the soul, the mind,
is becalmed in a vat in Valhalla, unable to do much but swim in meady
goodness, bubble and bumble and trouble and fumble;
and somehow get home without the aid of a Valkryrie’s wings.
And sometimes the right half is Jarilo, and the left Morana,
warring and warming and freezing and loving, logical winter,
creative spring, and new life poking through
the frost, purple-green buds punching properly
because it’s the cycle of life, man. Love and loss and
Cerebral cortexes. Just when I think I’ve got it sorted,
Anansi, sliding down the optic tectum, and I trip,
sprawling into space, arms spread, captured.

Joseph Campbell – “All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.”

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