The Brutal & Misogynistic Murder of the Tyrant-Enabler Jezebel at the Hands of the Baying Mob by Gustave Doré
A Rose by Any Other Name but This
Atheist parents do not breed Jezebels, Their daughters are precious, not pawns in a game. Atheist parents may mock what the Bible tells, But that is no reason to ressurect shame. It may sound pretty, and the Bible may teach slander, But still why would any parent choose a stripper’s name to brand her ?
Atheist parents do not breed Jezebels, Their daughters are Marys and Sarahs and Janes. Atheist parents may not fear burning hells, But that is no reason for bully-bate names. It may sound pretty, but it’s home to tarts and brats: For we cannot name our children in the way we name our cats.
So much emotion invested In teams over which we have little control – So many loyalties tested, Where happiness hangs on a single damn goal. We buy into brands and we swear that we’re theirs, But we’ve nothing to offer ’cept hoping and prayers – So they win or they lose – and at least someone cares, Though we act like it cost us our soul.
But all of that devotion For an empty sporting rite Must leaves no spare emotion To our fellow humans’ plight – There’s torture to be ending, and forests to be saving, There’s justice to be tending, and freedom to be braving – There’s too much needs defending to waste our flags with waving, Let’s get our passions working here instead. We need to get ignited for the good of all the blighted, Regardless if they’re wearing blue or red.
English: a right bastard-son of a language – A teenage two-fingers to logical sense. With lucky-dip spelling – a standardless gauge, An anarchist mang’ling our logical cage – We think that we’ve captured it dry on the page With pronouns and adverbs and grammars immense, But this is one battle it’s folly to wage – It breaks ev’ry rule in the end, so dispense\ With these thoughts we can tame it, or even condense – There’s no passive mood in its imperfect tense. It’s waiting to trip us, bamboozle, upstage, And piss on our tenets in nat’ral defence.
English: a beautiful fluke of a toolkit, And we are its masters, and never its slaves. And each time we use it, it’s changed just a little bit, Changed just a little – but should we permit ? Yet if we can follow, it must be legit. So don’t stem the growth and the sparkle it craves, But keep it adapting, surprising, and fit – And bring on the jargon and slang that ‘depraves’, And don’t mourn the umlauts and genders in graves, For this is precisely how Darwin behaves – Red in its verbs and its nouns and its wit. You can’t turn the tide, but you can ride its waves.
Get back to Soul Town, you Lowboy ! This life ain’t no place for raw baritones – Cos rock is for shrieking, not groans.
For all of you boomers – no joy. Basses have four strings and never play cords – Your earthquakes are cannons, not swords.
Metal might give you employ. Growling and gabbling their horror and death – Their technique is wheezing, not breath.
Blues are so grumpy, they cloy. Whinging as low as the gutter, those swines – But rock ain’t for whimpers, but whines.
Now disco’s the real McCoy Falsetto dudes, but too poppey and lite – They ain’t got much power, just height.
Your throbbing would really annoy. There’s nobody rocking the joint from down there. You rumble and roar, but we blare.
I think you’re out to destroy. Rock is the lightning – not thunder, not blunt. We bellow and howl, we don’t grunt.
So drop the guitar, it’s no toy, But a hazardous tool for no baritones – Cos if she goes off then your tremors and drones Won’t master this Helen of Troy. But scream at the girl and she screeches and moans, She hollers in harmony, pumping those cones.
So save all your moping for quinoa and soy, For rock is too out-there for subtle and coy – Our vocals jar teeth. Your vocals jar bones.
Just a gentle shove, Just enough to be affected – You’ll be coursed with love, Seeking ways to be selected. Friendship, fear, and lust, All combine in equal measure, Simmer, spark, combust – Evolutionary pleasure. Each prosaic nerve Further drugs the mindtrip you’re on – They are there to serve, Hope and love from cell and neuron. And when they call, Knowing this will help you not-at-all.
Brethren, Sistren, time has come, To rend this rhet’ric chain That keeps our poems tum-de-dum And ends each line in train. Enough ! Why must our efforts follow form ? Enough ! Why must their rhyming be the norm ? Enough, I say, bring forth the storm ! Blow down this old refrain !
I call on you, eschew all those Whose meter always chimes. You doubt how we with formless prose Can fight these structured times ? We must ! Until their villanelles concede. We must ! Until their odes and sonnets bleed. We must, I say, so take my lead: Reject this curse of rhymes !
“The Kingdom of God is a mustard seed, The leastest of all of the seeds of the earth, From out which the greatest of herbs shall be freed, With branches so stout for the birds to find berth.”
“But Master, are then not the seeds of the duckweed, Or even the orchid, or poppy, or rue, Yet ever more tiny, yet too they succeed ? From dust on the breeze, so the wilderness grew. Whyfore is mustard so sacred ? If smallness is wanted, when all’s said and done, Then surely the Kingdom of God should be second to none ? To carpenters, all wood is worthy, But farmers know not ev’ry stem is a beam, And there’s more to croft than a prophet can dream.”
“Then look at the size of the mustard and poppy: The former grows three times the height of the latter. Within such a speck lies so giant a crop, see, And we should remember that, next time we scatter.”
“But Master, if increase in size is so vital, Then why not the mulberry, grapevine, or cane ? There surely are worthier plants for the title, For look at the growth of the poplar and plane ! Whyfore is mustard so sacred ? The not-tallest herb from the not-smallest seed. And surely the Kingdom of God is a tree, not a weed ? To fishermen, all land is constant, But farmers know not ev’ry bud will bare fruit – And there’s more to a plant than a leaf and a root.”
“But those other plants are not found in the garden – Their seeds are but sown by the wind, not the hand. And mustard grows tall and its branches will harden, So even the nests of the birds can it stand.”
“But Master, the mustard grows tall in late summer, And then, as an annual, each winter it dies. When nesters are building, this plant’s still a comer, And still till the fledglings have long filled the skies. Whyfore is mustard so sacred ? For any birds perching must cause it to quake. But surely the Kingdom of Heaven won’t tremble and break ? To parables, all things are symbols But farmers know not ev’ry shrub is a rose, And there’s more to a seed than the fact that she grows.”
In terms of the ratio between the volume of the seed and the volume of the plant it fell from, Jesus would be hard-pressed to better the Coast Redwood: Wikipedia gives the seeds a size of 4mm x 1mm (including wings – about four times longer than a mustard seed), and let’s say they are 0.5mm deep. Let’s be generous and assume they are perfect rectangles, so each will have a volume of 2mm3, or 1/500 millionth of a cubic metre. The tallest known tree today is Hyperion at 115m, though the most massive is Grogan’s Fault with a main trunk volume of 1084m3 as at 2014, and that doesn’t include the branches or roots (though who knows how one calculates such a thing). Let’s call it a 1000m3 – we therefore have a size increase of 500 billion times the seed that grew it !
However, Grogan has nothing on Pando, a grove of Quaking Aspens that are infact all clones sharing a root system. Wikipedia gives its estimated weight at 6 million kilos, and according to Penn State University the average green wood weighs 714 kg/m3, so 6 million kilos of tree has a volume of 4,284,000 metres3. Unfortunately, I cannot find an indication online as to the size of the seeds, but the US Forestry Service states that there are “very light, 5,500 to 8,000 clean seeds per gram”. If we take the lower figure, then that single Aspen seed which spawned Pando has put on 33 trillion times its own mass.
However, give omniscient Jesus his due, he surely knew that redwoods would not thrive in arid Canaan, and this was likely why he didn’t bring them up. However, Canaan contains both Aspens (albeit Eurasian, not Quaking) and their cousins Poplars (White and Black), and the King James Version mentions ‘poplar’ twice – once in Genesis 30:37 (the famous ‘goats staring at streaky rods give birth to streaky kids’ experiment), and again in Hosea 4:13. Some translations also change ‘willow’ for the archeologically-correct ‘poplar’ in Psalm 137:2. But…the seeds are often accompanied by hairs making them appear much larger. What about a more down-to-Earth comparison ?
I can find no statistics on the average weights of garden plants, but TheSeedCollection.com (which sells them) states that there are around 360 Black Mustard seeds/gram, and Wikipedia says that a gram of Poppy seeds will get you 3300 seeds (there is no mention of Poppies in the KJV, but there is archeological evidence that the Philistines introduced them – indeed maybe they even formed part of Isaiah 40:6’s ‘flowers of the field’). Therefore, each Mustard seed weights the equivalent of 9 Poppy seeds, so even though a fully-grown Black Mustard plant is 2 metres tall (Britannica) and a full grown Poppy only 1 metre (Wikipedia) – it’s hard to imagine that the Mustard weighs nine times as much (remember, they have hollow stems). Though based on the image below, they look about a quarter of the volume so maybe the mustard seeds are more dense ? Or perhaps the mustards are spherical balls and the poppies flattened kidneys ? Incidentally, Wolffia is a type of duckweed, including the world’s smallest flowering plant, so no wonder their seeds are so teeny.
The king awoke one morning And he couldn’t find his crown, So he rang out for his footman To bring forth his ermine gown, Then ordered for the palace To be hunted upside down – And if it were still missing, To send men upon the town.
His reason for such urgency Was really very plain, That if the king is crownless, Then he rule goes down the drain – For if he stands bareheaded How will peasants know his reign ? A king without a coronet Is thoroughly mundane.
Fetch it ! Find it ! Capture it and mind it ! All your heads are bloody shreds If someone has maligned it !
The soldiers rummaged ev’ry house, And prodded ev’ry nook. They barged upon the merchantfolk, And half their wares they shook Incase the prize was hid within, Exposing crown and crook. And if it weren’t, the goods were wrecked, So clumsy was their look.
They burst upon the womenfolk In most ungentle ways – Their conduct was improper, And their language coarse of phrase. They entered ev’ry schoolroom, Ev’ry salon, mill and maze. But still it was not gainedfast, And the town was all ablaze.
Search it ! Seek it ! Plunder it and wreak it ! All your eyes are filling pies If somebody should sneak it !
The aldermen and dowagers Were startled and incensed. These worthies sought an audience, Their grievances dispensed – But found the King uncaring Of the tumult he’d commenced. They left with bitter passion For the town to stand against –
“His majesty can issue Any ruling or decree, But that is all as naught to us Who choose to disagree. It’s time for him to realise He’s just our employee, And if we are unsatisfied, It’s time to set him free.”
Pounce him ! Pry him ! Prison him and try him ! All our souls regain controls If ev’ryone deny him !
The king awoke one morning With his royal head uncrowned. He spent that very evening In cells of harsh surround. He never understood it, How his luck could so confound. His coronet, in passing, Was to never be refound.
Elizabeth has never liked her given name And wants to substitute or rearrange it – Maybe she should shorten, though that does seem tame: Elly, Lisa, Bette – they all estrange it. No, they’re common, twee and lame, And all too lacking in acclaim. So she must start afresh, aflame ! She mustn’t just shortchange it.
Elizabeth has never liked the name she’s got, But ev’ryone who knows her knows her this way – And even if she calls herself by who-knows-what, It won’t mean squat – they’ll never come and play. They’re far too used to it, she knows – it’s what they say, And even if they try, they’ll slip – they’ll slip a lot. ‘Elizabeth’ she’ll be until her dying day – Unless she leaves them all behind, for those who know her not…
Rhyming Couplets 