Richard O’Brien

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Theoretical Biology

In 1965, a bottlenose dolphin christened Peter was the subject of a scientific experiment under the auspices of Dr John Lilly. For six weeks, he lived in a flooded apartment in the Virgin Islands with a woman named Margaret Howe, who was tasked with teaching him human language. Needless to say, this was not successful.

All hands on deck.
             The sea thrashing below
a crew of Cretan sailors,
                        bound for gold.

In a flotation tank,
             the god Apollo
crests the black brine.

                                            Thought is a surging shoal:
                                                         whistles and clicks.

             Outside of Biddeford, Maine,
a huge brain throbs
                          to death on a coastal road.

             Men come with saws.

                                       Someone like Aristotle
                          walking the shore
                                       gazed at the gleaming blue.

It saw him too.                                         Hello, it said. Hello.

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RICHARD O’BRIEN’s publications include The Emmores (The Emma Press, 2014) and A Bloody Mess (Valley Press, 2015). he won an Eric Gregory Award From the Society of Authors in 2017, and is the Birmigham Poet Laureate 2018-2020.