Odes to Joy

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Canonical) · Track 436 · middle

The Experiment That Wore a Suit

Buckminster Fuller

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Your dome rises where the mind maps space—
synaptic plasticity blooming through struts,
each triangle a neuron learning to fire
in patterns that never collapse.
You saw the whole Earth as one breathing thought,
your hands building what your cortex predicted:
tension and compression dancing,
long-term potentiation humming in steel.
The geodesic whispers: *more with less*,
and your hippocampus consolidated it all—
every angle, every curve,
the way a skull protects what thinks.

[Chorus]
You built the dome that thinks like we think,
hollow yet infinite, phantom yet real,
your geometry sings the body's own song—
tensegrity, tensegrity, *feel it, feel it*,
where the inside holds the outside true,
and every strut learns what every strut knew.

[Verse 2]
Your myelination accelerates, speeding thought
down silver roads of frequency and grace.
The mirror neurons fire—*we become you becoming us*—
watching your fingers trace the air,
theta waves rolling through your vision,
consciousness remapping itself through structure.
You dared the world: *think spherically*,
and axonal branching spiraled outward,
predictive coding in your drawings,
the brain rehearsing what the Earth required.

[Chorus]
You built the dome that thinks like we think,
hollow yet infinite, phantom yet real,
your geometry sings the body's own song—
tensegrity, tensegrity, *feel it, feel it*,
where the inside holds the outside true,
and every strut learns what every strut knew.

[Bridge]
Neurogenesis in every blueprint,
interoception tuning the whole—
you felt the planet's pulse before science named it,
proprioception of the cosmos,
your hands alive with knowing.

[Chorus]
You built the dome that thinks like we think,
hollow yet infinite, phantom yet real,
your geometry sings the body's own song—
tensegrity, tensegrity, *feel it, feel it*,
where the inside holds the outside true,
and every strut learns what every strut knew.

[Outro]
The dome still stands, your synapses still firing,
each visitor stepping inside your thought—
touching the struts where your mind touched infinity,
protected, held, spherical, *home*.
Pick a song