Grasping at Gaps
There are still things that you don’t understand, he said,
Things that your science cannot yet command, he said,
Things that will always be strange and unplanned,
Till you see our Lord God at their head.
That’s true, but I think you are crowing too soon, I said,
True, but we’re learning, for all you impugn, I said,
True, but just shrugging won’t fly to the moon,
But it will gawp up limply instead.
The Book of Numbers
As a kid, I had a Bible,
But I only read the bits I knew.
Yet in the front, it listed all
The endless books therein, and quite a few !
I read the titles, wondering,
What ancient tales they must contain –
Though most were called by random names,
Which sounded boring, sounded vain.
But one stood out – The Book of Numbers !
Was it all divine geometry ?,
Secret cyphers ?, Sacred fractals ?,
Heaven’s holy trigonometry ?
Did it declare why the speed of light
Is the very speed it is ?,
Or how the cosmos banged so bright ?,
Or how the atoms whizz ?,
Or how entangled is the quark ?,
Or why is so much matter dark ?,
Or are the anti-particles still His ?
I should have known –
Nothing but a census, a way of keeping score.
When asked for facts, the Lord has shown
That nothing matters more than tax and war.
Not that taxes in themselves are a bad thing, as I’ve mused on here and here.
The Electric Universe
I heard about it on the wires –
From out the noise, a brand new spark
That’s causing quite a buzz, it seems,
With those who dare to cross the streams –
The stars are not atomic fires,
They claim, and matter isn’t dark !
Instead, across all empty space
Electrostatic charges race…
The stars are merely filaments
Amid a galaxy of bulbs,
The cosmic pulse, at super-C,
Will form electro-gravity.
Now, many physicists resent
This theory, and the place it holds –
But then, how can they fail to see
The holes in relativity ?
I heard the crackle in the air,
And tuned my head and felt the spike –
For all that maths and physics bore,
I saw at once the metaphor !
The Universe and I must share
In cells and galaxies alike
Electrons – tiny, yet so large –
So much potential in their charge !
Just in time for the first image of a black hole, I learned about a theory of space that denies their existence (also referred to as Plasma Cosmology). As I understand it, it basically posits that (though I’m sure I’m butchering this):
the reason no definitive evidence of black holes or dark matter exists is because they don’t actually exist,
that over 99% of matter in the universe is in a state of plasma, which readily conducts electricity,
that the lack of matter to hold the galaxies together is due to electricity itself amplifying gravity,
And that stars are not nuclear furnaces but more akin to the elements in lightbulbs, that is the places where the Universe’s electric fields ‘discharge’.
But like I say, I’m sure I’ve got that mostly wrong. And I make no claims to its accuracy. What attracted me to it was simply its poetic possibilities.
Omni-Sciessence
If God is all-knowing,
That means he must know
Of all that there ever was,
All that there ever is:
How the quarks come
And the particles go –
Ev’rything, ev’rywhere,
All truth is his.
The past and the present
Are known by the Knower
In all their minutia,
Quintessence and trait.
But still there is somewhere
Where knowledge is slower –
It drips out in trickles,
And God must just wait.
Almighty all-knowing
Is shrouded in mist
When it’s scrying for knowledge
Where no god can be.
For all of the Future,
Has yet to exist –
So it cannot be known
When there’s nothing to see.
More knowedge is locked up
That knowedge he knows,
He’s learned but a fraction
Of all there can be.
He knows that it’s out there,
And waits till it shows
As slowly – so slowly ! –
It works itself free.
Losing my Wretchedness
Amazing space, how blind and vast,
To fluke-up life like me.
I once had faith, but now at last,
I have infinity.
Circa Circumference
“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other…and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.“
– 1st Kings 7:23
There’s so many reasons for faulting the Bible,
From walking on water to capturing brides.
There’s so many reasons, it’s scarcely a libel
To call God a fool, and a mean one besides !
There’s so many reasons for calling it tribal,
And local and ancient – the worst-of-all guides.
So many bloopers and so many slayings,
Just so many errors and terrors astounding –
So why do you focus on one of its sayings,
By claiming the value of pi is worth hounding ?
You won’t get the faithful to doubtings and swayings
With petty point-scorings that don’t allow rounding.
Felis schroedingi
1.
I burrow through the wicker bin
Beside your desk, a-froth therein
With pencil shavings, strüdel crumbs,
And paper balls of failed sums.
I’m rubbing up against your socks,
Or sharp’ning claws against your box,
Or lis’ning to your strange device
That clicks and squeaks like frightened mice.
But I don’t like the vial with the strong, sharp smell
And why have you a hammer, and a pivot-rig as well ?
You’re planning for some trial – uncertain times ahead –
Wearing is this clamour, and I’m feeling quite half-dead.
2.
I mean, just what is life , anyway ?
I mean, crystals grow and all, don’t they ?
And viruses, they can even multiply,
And sperm can even swim, and twisters fly
And thinking machines – how do they fit in ?
And when does life end, and when does it begin ?
But you ain’t thinking ’bout any of this, are you ?
You’re thinking I have it and lost it, and both are still true
Not in any biological sense,
But only in a philosophic pretence.
Well, get over yourselves, it’s all down to chance:
My existence does not revolve around your ignorance.
3.
I am not quantum.
There are not two of me.
I have not become
An equation or postulation or theory,
Some waveform waiting to collapse,
A merely-possible-perhaps,
Or psi-functional mixture of states
In decoherence to my many-worlds’ fates.
You think you must see me to know me ?
And they say cats are solipsists !
And yet you claim I’m floating free,
Where yes and no both co-exist.
Don’t flatter yourself – I notice too,
But I guess I just don’t matter –
You’ve got some nerve !
For only your magical-looking will do !
But remember, I too observe – and I’m watching you.
4.
I’m one thing or the other,
I’m all this thing or that,
And whichever you discover,
Is right at where I’m at.
Because, whatever else I was,
Whatever else I am,
God damn ! Without caveat
I’m unbreakably all cat !
Chromium Dreams
They promised us of Things To Come:
The Future’s oscillating hum,
When dreams of Progress are unfurled
And pitched to claim this Brave New World.
We always knew it’s coming soon,
Those holidays upon the Moon,
The robots, ray guns, rocket boots,
The purple hair and silver suits.
But look at what infact we get:
The wind-farm and the internet.
Organic foods, not protein pills,
And terrorists, not air-raid drills.
We never got to live like gods
In fully-automated pods,
We never got to touch the stars
In UFOs and flying cars.
There’s no-one chilled in cryo-sleep,
There’s no-one dreams electric sheep,
There’s no-one swashes laser-swords
To saves the Earth from Martian hordes.
We’ve waited, just to find, too late
The Future now is out of date,
Yet still unripe its promised plums –
Alas, Tomorrow never comes.
The Elephant in the Time Machine
Suppose I were to travel back a day
To when you tossed a dime,
And watch in secret as you flip the coin
To see if you and helpless fate should join.
I, of course, already know the way
It came to land that time –
If I don’t tell, and you don’t know,
Then is your will still free, or just for show ?
And if I travel back a thousand-fold
To watch, and watch, and watch.
I would, I bet, observe the constant threads,
The endless runs of heads, heads, ever heads.
So does your ignorance then not withhold
Your destiny one notch ?
You are a puppet on a script –
And so, I think, must I be likewise gripped.
But no ! For we’re all Tempus Domini aboard
The Tachyon Express –
Speeding sixty-secs-per-minute forth,
And always quad-dimensional due-north.
For time is just our name for this vast hoard
Of causes and effects.
Through seas of future we must plough,
Just surfing on the ever-later Now.
Like Lockwork
You slide your shank in slow and smooth,
To dock upon the centre-post –
And now a gentle twist affords
To ease your teeth between my wards.
Your bit precise in ev’ry groove,
Your diamond-pick a torsion ghost:
A skeleton to probe my fob,
And whispers through – an inside job.
You push your shaft deep in the plug,
And stroke my barrel from within.
My tumbler spins, my cams engage,
My deadbolts throw and springs assuage.
My keyway holds your bittings snug
To activate each driver-pin
To line the shear as each is shipped –
Then enter in – my locks are tripped.
Rhyming Couplets 