The True Cross
The Romans built their crosses
Out if any local wood –
Roughly sawn and bluntly joined,
They needn’t be too good.
Growing full of nail-holes
And bloodstained, as a rule,
When used and used again, until they rotted,
Then hacked-up for fuel.
If Jesus ever lived, if Jesus died
Upon those wooden piers,
Those planks would carry-on their work,
Outlasting him by years.
Some say cedar, some say cypress,
Relics for a coronation.
All are wrong – the Cross was built
From our imagination.
Fish on Friday
The Catholics do it ev’ry Friday,
Or so they often claim,
The Protestants, only during lent,
Attempt to do the same.
While unbelieving heathens such as I
May join-in, if we wish,
But just as an excuse, in the event,
To share some tasty fish.
We only seem to think of it in my day,
Just as Easter comes.
But still, the start of the weekend is well spent
In batter or golden crumbs.
The Witherness of the Fig-Tree
Fruit was demanded, out of season,
Before the wasps had arrived.
A prophet cursed you, for no reason,
Except that he was denied.
Why so passive-aggressive that day ?
Why was he out to settle a score ?
Or did he just take your life away,
To be a metaphor ?
Was it power or wine made him drunk ?
Yet, after his magic tricks,
The Romans took your withered trunk
To make them a crucifix.
Hemlock
Catastrophic carrots that will help us see the dark
As it swallows us if we should swallow them.
Surprisingly accessible in any unkempt park
With its toxins and its bloody-mottled stem.
As if a mutant celery our negligence has freed,
Or some parsley of the never-to-be-sprigged,
There’s nothing that’s angelica about this devil’s weed –
Best not sup upon what Socrates has swigged.
The water hemlock, or cowbane, is an equally-deadly cousin in North America, but the pine trees with the stupidly-identical name have nothing to do with it. They were just judged at one point to smell the same, and nobody it seems ever slapped them round the face and told them to stop being so damned confusing for no good reason.
Funerary Minimums
The cemetery’s too egalitarian these days,
Nobody is building family tombs –
Just rows and rows of polished slabs which rigidly obey
All the ordinances for their little room.
Terraces of back-to-backs, each equal to its peers,
With nothing special here to mark our way,
Where ordinary folk have come to wile away the years,
And once they’ve settled-in, they’re here to stay.
The cemetery’s far too lacking temples, forts, and caves –
We need some wider plots and grander stones –
But not for just the wealthy to enrich their flashy graves,
While we others cram in boxes full of bones.
We need some council monuments, apartment blocks for all,
Where we lie down with our neighbours, mixed and matched.
To give some more variety for those beyond the pall,
Who have spent their lives in communes, not detached.
That’s right, I spelled ‘wile away’ without the H. It was deliberate, to enrage the pedants with my cunning whiles.
Hidden Eyes
English sheepdogs, Highlands cattle,
Marbled corneas in snakes,
Stalk-eyed snails with pop-up headlights,
Caterpillar eyespot fakes.
Staring cameras tend to rattle,
Black-walled, with a glossy sheen –
So mask them, yet still feed them light,
With eyes that see yet can’t be seen.
So wear a pair of shades ? Sure, that’ll
Make all nature look so cool…
If only ancient life had bred right,
We’d now be inscrutable !
Vision is a constant battle,
How to let the photons in ?
Yet we all see the infrared light
Not through eyes, but through our skin.
Righteous & Right
All I ever heard in church was
“God agrees with me”.
How they were right and I was wrong, cos
“God agrees with me”.
No matter what the subject,
What the decade,
What the town –
This world was full of sinners,
And they all were going down !
If only we would listen
To each humble, pious gent –
For only they could understand
What Jesus really meant !
No matter how opposing were their views,
Old God would not refuse –
He’d back them up – he always does –
Their pocket referee.
So all I ever learned it church was
“God agrees with me !”
Two Body Problem
I want to hear less of Uranus,
That big gassy body found in the Bath.
You see, you’re sniggering already !
It’s a noble planet, it’s not a cheap laugh !
Why use the Roman name of the Greek ?
‘Ouranos’ sounds not so silly.
Or better yet, let’s see more of ‘Caelus’
For the methane found by the Willy.
That’s Wilhelm Herschel, the man who slapped it
Into the solar system.
And named it after King George the Third –
When he saw royal buttocks, he kissed ’em !
From its nether regions, this constant hot air
Gets so petty, and I want it to stop –
I want to see less of this childish smut,
Or the pressure will make it go pop.
Urban Planning for Urbane Planets
You can’t build Uranus Circus in Bath –
At least, not by that name.
A quirk of language is having a laugh,
And we all have a smirk in the game.
Uranus was discovered in 1781 (11781 HE), though it had been unknowingly sighted several times, possibly as early as Hipparchus in 9873 HE. This was the first time that the concept of there being a new planet had ever occurred to anyone, and there was no reliable naming convention to guide them. Yes, the ‘prehistoric’ planets all bore the names of Roman gods, but was this new object really another one just like them, or should it be demarked as something different ?
Indeed, although Uranus was proposed as a name within a year (and the equally-newly-discovered element Uranium so named in its honour), consensus around it wasn’t achieved until some seventy years later, and meanwhile other proposals included Hershel, Cybele, and even Neptune. But at least the eventual winner was considerably better than that proposed by its discoverer – Georgium Sidus (or King George’s Star). I mean, it’s not a star, is it ? Next you’ll be naming a chunk of rock an asteroid…
For Your Consideration
Award me no Oscar,
Bedeck me no Grammy –
Your platitudes bore me,
Your clapping is clammy.
Nobels are for losers,
Don’t grovel and crawl –
Your Emmys are empty,
And Pulitzers pall.
So spare me your trinkets,
Your Tony or Bafta –
Just pay me with sales,
And reward me with laughter.
Pray, do not insult me
With Knighthoods and gongs –
If you wish to do honour,
Keep singing my songs.
Accessories at Large
To the gloves that leapt from my pocket,
To the brolly that stayed on the train –
You wanted freedom, so go out and rock it !
We never shall meet again.
I hope you’re not in the gutter,
Or locked in the lost-and-found –
For why should my loss be turned into clutter,
That benefits no-one around ?
I hope you are roaming distant lands,
Passed-on as your comfort spreads –
I hope you are warming worthier hands,
And sheltering fairer heads.
Rhyming Couplets 