THE ENGINEER PONDERS INTELLIGENT DESIGN

The eye, they say, look at the eye, nothing
That complex could’ve occurred by chance,
It’d be like a tornado blowing
Through a boneyard, building a Boeing from scraps.

Well sir, I never yet seen God devise jets
And as for optics, I’ve made better goggles
For robots. If what we got’s good as it gets,
How come half ‘em needs corrective lenses?

Shortsighted, longsighted, astigmatic,
Crosseyed, walleyed, colour blind, macular
Degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts—
That the suckers ever work’s miraculous,

Considering they got put in upside-down!
And don’t get me started on the wiring,
So cockeyed and crufty, it’d take a town
Of neurologists to map its misfiring

Matrix of circuits and switches. And let’s
Not forget the extra bits: appendix,
Gall bladder, supernumerary digits—
You’d swear a committee of idiots

Drew up this blueprint. But give credit
Where credit’s due: two kidneys and two lungs
Make uncommon sense in the event
Of malfunction, and you’d not want one tongue

More in your head, but Christ, why only one
Pump to move blood and one filter to clean it?
A single engine’s fine for a half-tonne
Pickup, but you need at least two on a jet!

And then there’s the sinus and spine,
Chronic pain wherein’s a constant reminder
They’d much rather their maker’d aligned
Them with the ground. You’ve got to wear blinders

To see enough evidence of sense
To impute this bloody botch to design.
If I’d assembled this unholy mess,
My son—well sir, I’d just have to resign!