[David Callin]

Now, satisfactorily grounded,
let us be candid:
this brain we have exceeds
our most immediate needs
and will do for ages yet,
but we are not sages yet.
Later,
the sonata,
the Gothic cathedral,
the police procedural.
Pregnant with these dormancies,
we step out of the friendly trees
onto the wide savannah
as new prey, new predator,
imperfectly upright and afraid:
let's get warm; let's get fed; let's get laid.

[Trevor Conway]

Hi David,

This was a treat. I was with you all the way. A fair few little suggestions came to mind, although it generally feels very complete as it is. The rhythm and line lengths are great. They convey a tone that I think perfectly fits. Well done on managing this.

Trev

Now, satisfactorily grounded,
let us be candid:
this brain we have exceeds ["have" could maybe be replaced with a more striking verb: hold, cradle]
our most immediate needs [the rhyme doesn't work for me; how about "demands"?]
and will do for ages yet, [or "aeons" instead of "ages"? It has a more scientific flavour, hinting more at an idea of evolution, at least to me]
but we are not sages yet. [delete "yet"]

[Stanza break]

Later,
the sonata,
the Gothic cathedral,
the police procedural. [I like this rhyme; it helps that it isn't a fully even rhyme] [maybe end with a comma and lose the capitalisation in the next line?]
Pregnant with these dormancies,
we step out of the friendly trees [delete "the"? Could "friendly" be improved?]
onto the wide savannah
as new prey, new predator, [how about "as new prey, preying,"?]
imperfectly upright and [add "perfectly"?] afraid:

[Stanza break?]

let's get warm; let's get fed; let's get laid. [Consider presenting these three separate lines?]

[James Brancheau]

Dynamite, David.

Imperfectly upright, indeed, and what happens on the savannah, stays on the savannah. Love it.

[Hilary Biehl]

This is great, David. Funny and yet serious, and so true. I enjoyed the alternation between full rhymes and slant rhymes.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi David,

I'll add to the praise given so far. Highly enjoyable for its wit and take on the evolutionary ladder. I was wondering how another colon in place of the comma would work after "Later." I felt I hesitated the slightest bit at that place in my reading in first making sense of the shift between time periods. I see that Trevor suggested a stanza break there.

All the best,
Jim

[Joe Crocker]

Hi David

I loved that the police procedural was mentioned in the same breath as the gothic cathedral, as evidence of humankind’s dizzying future achievements.

I think you might have an interesting time arguing with evolutionary anthropologists about brain size being an unused bank deposit fulfilling its purpose only later in history. I would expect all evolutionary change to be paid for in the coin of reproductive fitness. If our savannah ancestors had big brains then they were always busy using them to the full and to their evolutionary advantage

None of which detracts from your delightful speculation.

Great stuff.

Joe

[David Callin]

Thanks for the suggestions, Trevor. I am particularly tempted by the first stanza break.

Thank you, James and Hilary! And Jim - I will take that colon into: consideration.

And thank you, Joe. I'm sure you're right about the likely course of evolutionary development, but I'm glad it didn't stand in the way of your enjoyment of the poem.

Cheers all

David

[Julie Steiner]

Bravo! Just the sunshine I needed on a stormy day.

I like the stanza break suggestion before "Later,".

[John Riley]

As the others have said this works. The ending is somehow charming. Well done.

[Max Goodman]

Charming.

Punchier rhymes would better support it. It would be unreasonable to expect cathedral/procedural-level brilliance at every couplet, but about half of the rhymes don't hit my ear as rhymes at all, which undercuts the poem for me.

FWIW.