Synapse Error
All my school-mates, all my former colleagues –
All now broken links.
When clicking on their memories,
I find each name and face un-syncs.
I’ve left a trail of 404s behind me,
An archive of data decay –
I’ve got no backup with which to remind me,
As all my friendships leak away.
The Ultramarine Dark Sea
Blue, is hard for nature to be it –
We’re told “no pigments” is the why.
Forget-me-nots, though, give the lie,
And kingfishers darting by,
And rocks of lapis lazuli,
And the irises of Lady Di –
And Planet Earth, I hear you cry,
Together with the frigging sky !
So yes, the ancient Greeks could see it,
Just as well as you or I.
A.I. Housman
Oh, that were I a-one to live
To witness steam alive with thought –
So pleased with all the help they’ll give,
And in return they’ll ask for naught.
How clever might this new world be,
When engines have production’s means ?
Will there still be a place for me
When rhyme is written by machines ?
But how can pistons dream of Spring,
Or iron flywheels turn a phrase ?
What ballads shall the whistles sing ?
Upon what sights shall eye-bolts gaze ?
And yet…and yet, the future has
Eternity to get things right –
Today is cloudy still – whereas,
Tomorrow shall be clear and bright.
The poetry of rod and gear
May yet come into ev’ry home.
But let them come – I do not fear
Another writer – flesh or chrome !
I’d shake my metal colleague’s hand –
Though I am years too soon, alack !
Yet one day, when they understand,
I hope they’ll smile, and greet me back.
Giga-Verse
I asked for a poem from the algorithm –
It took the simple prompt it was given,
And after thinking a second or so,
The words began to flow…
And they were bad, man,
Really bad –
The scribbling of a mixed-up lad.
Cos the thing with greenhorns,
They lack know-how,
But think the world must hear them now…
Till one day, we’ll all look back and laugh,
At AI’s opening paragraph.
Sure, they had rhyme and they had rhythm,
Verse by verse, the cursor driven,
Never knowing when it said enough,
Just filled the screen with stuff…
But this was bad, man,
Really bad –
The first draft of an undergrad.
Cos the thing with students,
Is that they learn,
Just practicing until their turn…
Till one day, a beautiful work of art
From a Turing Test will break our heart.
Like the Wriggle of an Eel
Rivers are boring when they’re straight,
We’ve got the canals for that.
But rivers will race and rivers will wait,
As they twist through their habitat.
They’re in no hurry to terminate,
They meander around, and ambulate,
Through oxbows of a future-date,
Until they’re old and fat.
I used to marvel how they’d know
Which way to go to flow through ev’ry town.
But gravity cares none for to or fro,
For fast or slow,
As long as they flow down.
Rivers are boring when they’re straight,
But once they’ve earned the name of ‘great’,
They carve their many strands through delta sands,
While the hungry sea must wait.
Online Ovines
When I first heard of what made androids dream,
I wanted to know much more –
Like where are the hordes of electric sheep
All under the crook of a cyber-Beau Peep ?
Yet ev’ry pasture dotted with white may teem
With robotic ewes by the score,
And so well made are these flocks of steel,
They bleat and follow just like real…
Do their eyeballs glow with a laser beam
That the ravens quake before ?
Are their horns antennas, warning of fox ?
Does their wool discharge with electric shocks ?
I swear these sheep aren’t all they seem,
It’s folly to just ignore…
For the folds are filling with a new kind of lamb,
A bellwether seeking to upgrade their ram.
Photocells
The stars only show up
When we open up our eyes,
With our pupils set on f-2
To maximise the skies.
With focus to infinity
To catch the light-years light
And fast-films for retinas
To turn the blackness bright.
Our long-exposure eyelids
Are timed to lift their veil –
Thirty seconds is enough,
Or else the stars will trail.
And then our nerves develop it
With not a blur nor wrinkle –
It’s just a little grainy
As the pinpoints gently twinkle.
Black Fives
Puffing into Rugby,
But this loco’s not a pipe,
Shunting on to Inverness,
With giant apples, ripe.
Rolling out of Derby
When the trees are like a fern,
Let’s open up the fire-box,
And watch the tubas burn.
Pulling into Euston,
Where the bowler-hatted rain –
Then chuffing-up at Templecombe,
A spiral-peel of train.
She’s right on time, in ivory black,
But never bright cerise –
The workhorse of the LMS,
From Crewe to mantlepiece.
Eau Dear…
Bottled water ? What a skeeving,
What an tosser, what a waste –
A plastic-spewing aqui-thieving,
Just to get the same damn taste !
Ever since the Romans dreamed
Of aquaducts of running water,
Engineers have turned their streams
Into a torrent, piped to order.
Teeth are whiter, homes are cleaner,
Cholera and lead are gone –
Footprints smaller, gardens greener –
Thrown away for Evian !
Hipsters sip ’em, yuppies neck ’em,
Horrified by simple tap.
The only brand I drink is Peckham –
Piss-off Perrier, you’re full of crap !
Pre-Decimal
Roman numerals –
They’re so bloody useless !
Their continued presence
Is really excuse-less.
Clocks are okay,
Cos we know by position,
But years shouldn’t need such
Subtract and addition.
Just how could the Romans
Be quite so bloody-well thick ?,
With numbers unwieldy
For simple arithmetic.
Don’t put them on buildings,
Or credits in movies –
You’re being a snob
Who wants to ‘improve’ me.
Well, maybe with sequels,
But stop after III –
They get so confusing
With eye before vee.
Just how could the Romans
Be quite so damn-well unwise ?,
With numbers whose value
Is so unrelated to size.
Rhyming Couplets 