Surgeons, pilots, firefighters, Barristers, and presidents – These pseudo-psychopaths, From the boardrooms to the regiments, Who find calmness in the chaos And detachment in the fear, Who are able to exert control And keep their focus clear. They switch off their empathy When steady at the lever, To stop them dithering with love, Or panicking with fever. We need them in the frontlines, With their special kind of brain – But most of all, we need to help them Switch back on again.
I always find psychopaths in movies incredibly boring, but this poem was greatly inspired by the fascinating Vsauce2 video on the subject.
I’ve always hated that verse – To take a disobedient, wayward son, A glutton and drunkard, and maybe something worse – And to drag him to the elders, and call on ev’ryone To muster at the gate of the town To take up stones, and put him down.
But I recently heard a theory That asks what parents would willing follow ? After all, it costs them so dearly, And any sense of piety must leave them hollow. How extreme must their son appal For such a code to be needed at all ?
Surely this was only spoken To deal with the psychopaths among them ?, The ones who threatened until they were broken, The monsters and parasites dressed as young men. How else could they protect their town When a rabid dog was skulking around ?
But even setting the problem of evil aside, Is this the best defence ? Why must the Lord make the parents decide When enough is enough ? It beggars all sense – It’s just too cruel for anyone To have to denounce their troubled son.
But honestly, I have my doubts, That this is what is meant by it at all – And if it is, it needs to spell it out, Just why they’re thrust against the wall, To stop the zealots stoning ev’ry child By judging surliness as ‘running wild’.
Thank goodness we ignore such spite, And wonder why we keep such books around. For there’s a psychopath, alright, But he’s not the frightened kid upon the ground – Rather, he’s the one with crazy eyes Who gladly casts the first stone from the skies.
Do you feel the cold nip ?, Do you feel the dark creep ?, Do you feel your chest grip, And lungs rasp, and heart leap ? Whatever else is in this dark, You think, It’s not alone out here – For it must share this lonely park With both you and your fear. You hear that ? Hark… Don’t blink, Don’t make the blood rush through your ear. Ba-dump, ba-dump, Your throat a lump, Your calm but an veneer. Now all your senses are abuzz, To ev’ry twitch and sigh – You only feel alive because You’re too afraid to die.
Do you bite your numb lips ?, Do you count each heart thump ?, Do your prickled fingertips Clench fast each time your teeth jump ? Whatever else is in your mind, You think, It’s not alone in there – For it must stalk your misaligned And overactive lair. Don’t look behind, Just blink, Before your nerves fly ev’rywhere. Ba-dump, ba-dump, Your tremors pump, Your heart recites a prayer. And yet, be thankful when it does, For this, at least, is real – You only feel afraid because You’re still alive to feel.
Some plants only germinate through fire, Waiting out the years Until the tragedy appears. They need the forest hotter, tinder dryer, Even dropping oil To make a tarpit of the soil. But there hasn’t been a fire through here, I’m told, In fifty years of cold – I guess these trees are all the same-age-old.
Their life-cycle needs the flames be fanned, They need to taste the char Before they’ll shoot a single spar. They need apocalypse to sweep the land To birth their phoenix seeds, To grow within the ash of weeds. And there are even beetles who must birth Within the hell-scorched earth, (Though salamanders don’t, for what it’s worth).
Double roses are showy but barren, Turning stamens into yet more petals, Living the bachelor life. Even if they still make pollen, Bees can’t push through all those petals, Leaving them with no midwife. Yet these are the roses in bouquets, To symbolise our multilayered love Of loud and overdressed grooms. But dog roses are where bees graze – They’re wide-open with stamens full of love And hips full of future blooms.
The day will come When my breaths are laboured, When I actu’ly hear myself each rasp. Till the lungs strike dumb, And my voice goes wayward, Rattling-out in a final gasp. As if to say “Ah Life, you took my breath away…”
And when I pant, I wolf in oxygen, Corroding me within, And breezing down my three-score-ten. And when I yawn, I practice when I die, By choking with a grin. But better not to stifle such a cry – For sooner to inspire and gulp down life Than just expire in one long sigh.
So ev’ry breath is one breath less, And yet how many do I get ? I couldn’t even start to guess, But far-too-lots to be a threat. It’s twenty-thousand breaths-a-day, But who on Earth is keeping score ? I’ve wasted sev’ral just to say I still possess a lifetime’s more.
It’s a terrible thing to admit, But I have been pondering of late On the role of microplastics In our fractious trans-debate. It feels like a conspiracy I’m giving into, true, So I could be spouting nonsense and I haven’t got a clue, And I’m willing to be argued-out with science where it’s due, And trust me, I don’t wish for this to foster any hate.
It’s a terrible thing to admit, But what if, what if, there’s something in it ? Perhaps, just like the plastic, we need to take more care Before we bin it ? I rather notice a lack of historical examples, see, And how it often coincides with the onset of puberty, And elsewhere how it’s messing with our minds, developmentally – So I don’t know, see, I don’t know…but think on it a minute…
It’s a terrible thing to admit, To call our trans-friends as somehow disabled – No, that’s not right…but affected by stimuli ? Is that a less-pejorative label ? And if true, it means our efforts to keep the planet greener Will prevent the contaminants from changing our demeanour – The next generation will be less-confused and leaner – Unless, though…unless I’ve just fallen for a fable…
It’s a terrible thing to admit, And yes, I hear the words I say, And yes, people are beautiful, However we came to be that way. And yet…and yet…if it’s all true, then oughtn’t we to know, To better understand it and just how our bodies go ? For we’re all of us reacting to this world in which we grow, And for the foreseeable, the plastics are here to stay.
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.
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.
This is a particularly pernicious urban myth that will take years to debunk, and shame to say it’s often lefties who love these QI-style gotchas (two moons, anyone ?). I recomend watching Metetron’s takedown of this bullshit.
Rhyming Couplets 