ESN Legacy

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An additional legacy of the 2013 meeting was a specially commissioned poem, written by the 12th Bard of Bath, Thomasin Gillow, who performed it for the first time at the conference banquet.

Thommie’s personal view of

neurochemistry created a synergy between literature and science that was highly appreciated. The poem was published in J. Neurochem. (2013) 127, 1–3.

When the Poet met up with the Neurologist

Thomasin Gillow

When the poet met up with the neurologist the first thing she said was this,

how is it? that my brain,

with all the wonderful things it is, has not yet learnt to kiss?

How is it that I cannot open my head, and take the thread

of my thoughts

and tie them to yours, intertwine us together,

make you mine again, forever?

To me your words taste like wishes, dropped deep into a well

clinking like fishes echoing bellowing

yellowing in the canals of my mind.

To me your neck smells of promises and fear, and if I could open my skull to you

you would see electricity through my glia, bolts and lightning strikes on fire

through my glia.

and each word that passes your lips

you would see my dopamine levels get higher and higher and higher and then you would see them dip.

If my brain could hold yours it would hold yours in hands as big as arm chairs,

as big as hippos

for all that it thinks it knows

only with your brain could mine ever really smell a rose.

Rip open my skull

and my brain will wave at you,

it will spill down my spine in its longing for you reaching out efferent fibres, limbic desire Crawl through memories that crown us, through memories that drown us,

through memories we side step lest they indelibly stamp us,

Rip open my skull

and you will see my hippocampus flushed with you.

It has been too long neurologist

and my poetry has turned my brain from matter into smoke. You once said my love was a joke,

a biochemical reaction so each time we had sex

I tried to open my cortex to you

so you could see each hemisphere glow and know

that my love was true,

but it was more than I could do.

When the poet met up with the neurologist the first thing she said was this,

how is it? I ask you why, that my brain,

with all the wonderful things it is, it has not yet learnt to kiss goodbye?