FWG: Hypnotic Dance

Newly emerged from cocoon,
He spreads his wings revealing
Colours extraordinary,
Patterns supernatural;
Impossibly vibrant.

No aid to flight are these shades.
No safety measure do they serve.
No environment are they camouflaged within.
A ludicrous over-evolution
With no real purpose but to hypnotize;
To dazzle her.

I am a fully functional male,
Say the colours on his wings.
Testament to health.
Choose me,
And we’ll make beautiful butterfly babies.

Branching here and there,
A convoluted network.
No simple horns are these.
We call them antlers ‘round these parts.

No prey or predator they impale,
This runaway mutation
With no real purpose but to impress;
To wow her.

I am a strong and robust male,
Says this towering network.
Testament to health.
Rut with me
And we’ll make sturdy elk babies.

The beetle’s kaleidoscope carapace;
No stronger does it make the shell.
But stronger are the chances he’ll get lucky;
Get some hot and sweaty beetle sex.

The peacock’s tail;
An insane extravagance;
A dangerous liability.
Dragging him down in flight from pursuer.
Natural selection gone out of control.
But oh how he spreads it out and shakes it,
He’ll be getting some peahen sugar tonight.

And what is this creature?
What is this creature?
That walks on two legs,
Knuckles clear of the ground,
With one feature evolved beyond all appropriateness;
Beyond all suitability for survival.

It is a hidden feature,
Caged behind a bulging forehead,
Apparent only through behavior;
Through its power to invent
And dream and fantasize.
It is this creature’s brain that testifies to health,
That is made to wow, to hypnotize.

Look at the beast. It talks and dances
And acts upon a stage.
Jokes and songs and back-stage passes,
Fancy words and podiums.

It summons the strangest ideas;
Ideas of nations and corporations,
Of gods and ideologies;
All of them tribal competitions;
Trading little green papers; imagined gold.
Building nests ever more gigantic.
Building machines ever faster.

Each stud competing
To make the biggest noise
Or fill the biggest space.
Every word and action a seduction.

All their lives a mating game;
A permanent foreplay
To one global bisexual orgy.