Timid Tectons
Britain sits at the heart of its plate,
So far from the faultlines, far from volcanoes.
Though Arthur’s Seat and the Giant’s Causeway celebrate
How we once had those
Britain sits where the crusts are thick,
Though they used to bend, as the Great Glen shows.
And Lincoln lost its cathedral spire, when a final kick
Gave some glancing blows.
Chymistry
The alchemists assigned the ancient metals
To a planet each:
The Sun is gold, and brightsilver the Moon,
Or so the heavens teach.
While quicksilver is Mercury,
And Venus has a copper heart.
And Mars is cast in iron, clearly,
In their philosophic art.
Old Jupiter is made of tin,
And Saturn is a lump of lead –
(Or bendledd, as I like to think
They should have called the stuff instead.)
And that was the edge of their knowledge,
And Uranus came too late –
But what might they have named his element,
To match his fate ?
I think redledd – bismuth,
Though they did get them confused –
And Neptune can be brimstone,
Since that still has not been used.
But what of the others ? Like the Earth ?
I guess that must be carbon coal.
And plainsight-hidden Ceres is our makebrass zinc –
That fits her role.
And banestone Pluto gets to stand
For ars’nic, dark and glimmer-free,
Till dim and distant Eris is our stibblack,
For antimony.
Of course, we really did get chemicals
That have all grown with them –
That’s how we got uranium,
Neptunium, plutonium,
(And much-forgotten cerium)
And all the secrets each unlocks.
One wonders what the alchemists
Would make of such explosive rocks…?
Note that antimony has its stress on the second syllable (as it should be…)
And of course, these days we’ve actually found the philosopher’s stone that can turn other metals into gold – only these days we call it a supernova instead.
Self-Promotion
I slipped a copy of my self-published collection
Into the longed-for shelf
Of the Poetry Library.
Finally, I had overcome the rejection,
To stand alongside some
Of my heroes, my tribe, my key.
Oh sure, one day a snooty librarian
Will pluck-up my root
And toss it away –
But until then, let it be egalitarian
Where a browser can see
What it has to say.
And it isn’t only my guerrilla slim volumes
That compete with the filler
Of our daily round –
I’ve also prepared some placards à la plume
To cover-up the Bards
On the Underground.
But my best reach for well-placed words, I think
Is not to just paste
My flyers on a fence –
But when I fill all the walls with my ink
In the lonely stalls
Of convince.
Spring-Bringers
When the daffodils go over
Then the Spring is on the way !
And though it’s sad to see the yellows wilt,
At least they had their day.
Once the clover is in clover,
Then the bulbs are all long done –
But Springtime has been built upon
Their early yellow sun.
When the bluebells have stopped ringing,
Then the Spring is truly here
And though it’s sad to see the mauve-lings fade,
At last they gave good cheer.
Once the tulips have stopped singing,
Then the bulbs have done their work –
And it’s time to let the first watch fade
And once more softly lurk.
Aces Low
The deck is quite a chunk to ruffle,
With their aspect ratio all wrong –
They’re just too long.
But practice helps the dealer shuffle,
When they deal-out hands of eighteen-strong.
Tarot plays a bit like bridge –
The bidding starts, the tricks are played the same,
With points the aim.
But choosing trumps is sacrilege –
They never get to change from game to game.
The trouble is the cards we lay –
For even when they bear French suits – and mind,
They’re rare to find –
But still they’re full of bullshit on display
Just number them, and leave the rest behind !
I wish the trumps were double-ended –
That’ll teach the fortune-telling quacks,
Don’t touch our packs !
And to balance out the genders,
Can’t the knights become the dames to beat the jacks ?
But no, we can’t enjoy our whist,
Without our cards be saturated through
With putrid woo.
It doesn’t take a psychic twist
For the twenty-one of trumps to beat a two.
You won’t believe how many times I had to ask AI to genenrate this image before it managed to spell it right…
Head up West and See the Lights
The neon lights of old Piccadilly-dilly
Used to be so bright and silly-silly,
But the screens have sprung-up willy-nilly –
Boringly displayed.
Now there’s nothing but advert-a-go-go,
Shouting products from ho-hum to so-so.
Art and style ? I’m afraid that’s a no-no –
Over and over replayed.
Sell more junk food, flog more bling-bling,
Scream more news, from Bronx to Beijing-zhing,
Punching eyeballs, all for kerching-ching –
The goods must be obeyed.
The hungry billboards are always on-on
The Eiffel Tower needs a new Citroën-tron.
Buy buy buy till the stuff’s all gone-gone –
As long as the profits get made.
The Z-Factor
The world is full of av’rage talents,
Nothing-specials, soon-forgottens –
The world is full of you’s and me’s,
All dreaming silks but dressed in cottons.
Those stars are the ones-in-the-million,
While the million are all of we –
Ignoring one-another’s slop,
In search of stars we’ll never be.
Sun Bulbs
The daffodils are blooming
In my window-box again,
Just to show that Spring is looming
In the face of icy rain,
They sprout besides my sill once more
In planters perched on high,
As they cheer my second floor,
And bring a garden to the sky.
The daffodils are blooming
In my window-box again,
But they turn their heads from booming
Through the gloomy window-pane.
Instead, they stare at Winter Sun
Where all their real focus is.
I think next year, to stop the shun,
I’ll just grow crocuses.
Corporate Transport Body
My body is a mass of public transit
Running through my flesh,
As supersonic neurons sprint down nerves,
Whose networks branch and mesh.
And food is ferried by the central core
That winds its way on down,
On through the stomach-hub,
And past the branch-line to appendix-town.
My lungs, meanwhile, are shuttling air
Upon the trunk-route to my nose,
And blood cells catch the tube to distant suburbs
In my hands and toes.
My brain contains the signal-box,
My heart contains the motive power,
Keeping my commuters moving
Through the rush and midnight hour.
Panopticon
We live our lives in public,
Ev’ry time we step outside our door –
We’re on-display when popping to the store.
We navigate the common space
Past ever-watching spies,
Upon the CCTV captures of a hundred people’s eyes.
We live our lives wide-open,
Ev’ry time we talk to one another –
Ev’ry little action slips the cover.
We might as well be on the stage,
And naked to our soul –
And yet in truth we are audience far more than leading role.
For we live our lives in public,
Watching all our fellow-humans live –
For all to see – they cannot help but give.
We’re just another passing glance,
Our mutual selves unfurled –
And so the world performs, the world looks-on – and we are of the world.
Rhyming Couplets 