Into the Future, Shambling & Mumbling

Star Wars Zombies
Star Wars Zombies by Fredrik Edén

Into the Future, Shambling & Mumbling

Lookit all you zombies, living lives like you was thinking –
But I know you’re just the puppets to the Codebooks in the sky.
Lookit all you statues – yeah, you don’t fool me by blinking –
Cos I know you’re really dummies – and the suck is, so am I !
Ev’ry single doll of us is following the Script
With its plot for ev’ry atom all controlled in all its jazz –
Gotta keep ’em tight in line, you can’t have strays or space-time’s ripped,
And then how can the Future come to pass like it already has ?
Of course, it’s all that Albert’s fault –
Him and his flash equation.
Had to open up the vault,
Loose the tachyon invasion.
Had to prove, and quite routine,
His theory for the time machine.
And whoops, he’s sent our free will sinking.
Hello zombie, goodbye thinking.

Now when it comes to sci-fi, I can take a little licence –
Like your artificial gravity – we know all that’s all bunk –
And beaming-down and warp-speed – well, the concepts have entice-ence –
We all so want to so believe, like any cyberpunk.
But daddy of them all, be it phone-box or DeLorean,
Is scorching up the past-times when they ain’t so dead and gone.
Sticking-up two fingers to the know-it-all historian,
And making sure our parents got to meet and get it on.
But don’t you see the problem here ?
The Future is already there –
And all we do must all adhere
To make it happen right and square.
So ev’ry choice is just a lie,
We’re ruled by Codebooks in the sky,
We’re patsies with our choices stripped,
We’re puppets to the Master Script.

Lookit all we zombies, living lives like we got lives to live,
And not some pre-determined plot to parrot as we plod.
Lookit all we androids, got our program and executive,
To serve the algorithm of our micro-managed god.
Ev’ry single slob of us is following the show,
With the final season written long before the pilot aired.
But we’re still convinced it’s streaming live, and watch it blow-by-blow,
As we’re stuffing-in the popcorn – yet we none of us are spared.
We’re doomed to planned banality…
Unless…old Albert’s wrong instead !
And if infact causality,
Just like us zombies, is undead…
But how can Time and Space apply
Without the Codebooks in the sky ?
Yet if the Future ain’t our grey-boss –
Goodbye zombie, hello chaos.

Anatamour

turned on white and black torchiere lamp
Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

Anatamour

I love the way your halves combine.
I love the way you place each lung
With careless grace and good design
On either side your centre line,
And equidistant from your spine.
I love the way your ribs are strung.

I love the way your shoulders fit,
I love the way your arms construe.
I love the way your kidneys sit,
So each, the other mirrors it
To keep the couple quite legit.
I love the way your hips are two.

I love the way you wear your legs,
So nicely paired, and just enough –
For with a third, the question begs
Of where upon your frame it pegs.
I love the way you keep to regs.
I love the way you’re up to snuff.

I love your face with eye and eye,
I love the way they both are blue.
I love the way they flit and fly
In unison, to watch me pry
Upon thy tygrish symmet-try.
I love the way you’re balanced-through.

The penultimate line is inspired by how I always read the fourth line of a certain poem of William Blake’s.

One Spot, Two Spot

ladybird on finger
Early Ladybird by Gavin Clack

One Spot, Two Spot

Ladybird, ah Madame Ladybird,
It really is so good of you to call !
Is this just a flying visit,
Won’t you rest and pack your wings up small ?

Ladybird, ah Madam Ladybird,
Have you flown by chance a good long way ?
Looking for a husband, Miss ?
Or are you wed with many eggs to lay ?

Ladybird, ah Madam Ladybird,
I see now that your wing-case is ajar –
Must you up and go a-hunting ?
Won’t you stay a while ?  You’ve flown so far.

Ladybird, ah Madam Ladybird,
Must you dash so soon to beat the rain ?
Shall I greet you on the morrow,
Or are we to never meet again ?

Part-Time Poet

white and black weekly planner on gray surface
Photo by Bich Tran on Pexels.com

Part-Time Poet

I’m only a poet on Tuesdays –
For most of the week, it’s ignored.
When all of the rest
Of my life is distressed,
That’s all I can really afford.

I’m only a poet on Tuesdays,
I’m only an artist in brief.
By Wednesday, it’s gone
As the week presses on,
And my words are all buried beneath.

The Elusive Mr Morningstar

Satan
Satan by William Blake

The Elusive Mr Morningstar

(In reply to Mick Jagger)

Who was it brought flood and killed
Now all bar eight and two-by-two ?
And who was it the plagues fulfilled,
And ev’ry firstborn slaughtered through ?
And who was it dictated Law
With racist hates and petty spites ?
And who was it commanding Saul
To genocide Amalekites ?

Who was it with love divine
Came not with peace but with a sword ?
And who was it made Constantine
Kill all who prayed to Jove as Lord ?
And who was it Indulgence sold,
And rent the schismic Church apart ?
And who was it sought relic-gold,
And clast the icons, smashed the art ?

Who was it turned Papal might
Crusading east with zealous cares ?
And who was it sent butcher knights
To Temple Mount and Friday Prayers ?
And who was it built witches’ pyres ?
And made that bigot Luther split ?
And who was it filled Henry’s ires,
And Bloody Mary’s roasting spit ?

Who was it set Cortez loose,
And murd’rous-censor Thomas More ?
And who was it hid child abuse ?
And Cromwell’s terror ?  Holy war ?
And who roused Torquemada’s will ?
And Galileo’s truths deny ?
And who keeps Ulster troubled still ?
I swear it wasn’t I.

Childless Genes

Genetic Modification

Childless Genes

I am the product of four-billion years-worth
Of winners and breeders, and fighters and choosers.
But now they shall wither, extinguished forever –
For billions they flourished, yet still wound up losers.
But hold on, my genes are my sister’s, my brother’s –
They’ll swim through the side streams, these spawny succeeders.
For they are the product of four billion years-worth
Of fighters and choosers, and winners and breeders.

Seismic Sirens

Vesuvius
Vesuvius in Eruption by Joseph Wright

Seismic Sirens

“A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.”

– Geology Now

It only takes an ankle,
Or the merest hint of wrist,
And oh, calamities abound !
These wenches shock the very ground !
The seething earth they rankle
With each rendezvous and tryst.
It only takes a look or pout
To make the boiling magma spout.

Prog Log

feet legs animal farm
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Prog Log

Pick a part that plays: obey it.
Snatch a patch ablaze, and spray it.
Rack it up with praise, and pray it.
Pump it full of haze, and grey it.
Graze it and weigh it.
And raise it and pay it.
In a thousand little ways – array it.
Amaze it and sway it,
Abrase it and fray it,
But however we lay it, let’s lay it down dense.

There’s nothing here of consequence,
Or making sense – and do we care ?
That show’s so-over, over there –
It’s more than incongruity can bear.
Those bare-faced bears’ credulity
Is worth just one and two and twenty pence.
We’re seeking for a mark to steer,
The dark to clear –
But hark !  Is that a Mellotron I hear ?
Waiting for our gaze to slay it,
Searching for the phrase to say it,
Just pick a part that plays,
And play it.
Man, that’s so intense…

A piece of sheer nonsense, just for the sake of the sound of the words.  I make no apologies.

Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.

Not Telling

exercise equipment skipping rope gym sport
Photo by Dom J on Pexels.com

Not Telling

(A skipping chant)

I’ve got a secret,
Maybe I shall speak it –
Maybe I shall leak my secret indiscreet.

I’ve got a story
Told to me by Rory –
Maybe I shall store my story safe and sweet.

To how many folk
Shall I utter not a croak,
Shall I never chat or jaw
What I saw ?

And how many days
Shall I mutter not a phrase,
Shall I never breathe a word
What I heard ?

Your hunger’s getting bolder,
Your guesses getting colder –
But promise to be good
And I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Five fives are twenty-five
And three threes are nine
I’ve got a secret
And it’s mine, all mine.

There have actually been whole studies conducted into skipping chants and clapping songs, and it seems ti’s a surprisingly conservative world, with endless variations around a few old standards – number one in the playgrounds for the past few decades has been A Sailor Went to Sea, latterly morphed into We Went to a Chinese Restaurant.  I don’t hold out much hope of entering the canon, and quite honestly until it’s been playtested by proper six year olds, we’ll never know if it even meets the brief.