60 Cogito ergo…

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Cognito ergo...

I’ve always been a coward when it 
Comes to gizzards and all that stuff 
Beneath the skin. Bones are one thing, 
But I don’t like to dwell much on 
Those other bits that lie above my feet:
Cartilage and nerves and tendon string, 
And worse, those pipes and tubes
And blood and fat and all that meat.

I prefer to think of myself as pure 
Intelligence, a ‘me’ that unsupported,
Floats along six feet above the ground 
Talking and listening and thinking.
Nothing at all between my soul
And outer air, a disembodied whole. 
Then I can philosophise the nature
Of mind as a theoretical issue;	
Analyse questions on the neural basis
Of thought with no need to come to terms
With guts and glands and actual tissue. 

At least I can when all goes well. 
Detachment gets trickier when I feel ill. 
Mind over matter is a piece of cake 
When you’re firing on all cylinders. 
But when you start to chatter
To yourself and memory problems
Coincide with a splitting headache
Those fleshy things seem all too real.

Visions of those pipes and tubes
And gurgling goings-on inside
Return to horrify again. I think then
Of those bones someone’s found
And archaeologists dig-up on TV
The meaty parts eaten by worms.
And I wonder what will become
Of that disembodied ‘me’ 
Who once floated unsupported,
Six feet above the ground.