It is easy, far too easy, At this mawkish time of year, To call it crass and sleazy, And commercialised veneer. Muzak-strewn and wheezy, And bubble-wrapped and cheesy, And cuddle-cute and queasy, And worthy of our smuggest sneer. But once we’d dowsed the festive ember, How then would we warm December ?
It is simple, far too simple At this twinkly time of year To only see the pimple On the face of winter cheer – The self-appointed saviour And the goon from Scandinavia Who spy on our behaviour, Yet who we’re told we should revere. So kids must don a wimple On their thoughts, and simper insincere With innocence of dimple, And conviction in the flying deer.
There’s very little needs to change, Just don’t forget that kids are smart – There’s plenty in this world that’s strange Without the need for lies to start. Tell them all the pretty stories, Tell them that they are just stories, Tell them thanks to Newton’s glories, How we know that deer can’t fly. Tell them that it doesn’t matter – Love them as they are, reply. Birds are tiny, deer are fatter, That’s the price for antler-clatter – Evolution tells us why, Despite what stories say. Robins cannot haul a sleigh, As deer cannot fill the sky.
Model of Dunkleosteus terrelli, photographed by James St. John. I have been unable to uncover who made the model.
Sleeping with the Armoured Fishes
Ah lads, I love me a lonely building site, But best be down to business – bring the rat. It really is a calm if moonless night And I’m in quite the mood to have a chat. Yes, bring him here, and keep him gagged and bound. So, let’s have a look at you – nothing to say ? Ironic, given how you like to expound – But then, I’m not the cops, and I don’t pay. So pray, indulge me with a heart-to-heart. You’re what, mid-twenties ? Younger than I thought. Are you a college boy ? You think you’re smart ? But not so brainy now that you’ve been caught. Same age as my boy, infact, and just as raw. When he went off to uni, I said “Son, I don’t want you to study business or the law, Don’t want you to follow in my footsteps none. Go and find yourself in girls and books And study something useless, something fun.” “Alright dad,” he said, “goodbye to crooks, And here’s to looking after number one. And I know just the course for me – It’s palaeontology ! Digging up the bones like any average Jones.”
So off he went to college with his hammer Seeking out the placoderm and ammonite, To live that student life in all its glamour – Pasta, parties, politics and cram-all-night. And now he even works for a museum, Cataloguing shells and dating rocks – He calls the place a fossil mausoleum, Worshipping the dead, then seal them in a box. But then one day, he’s telling me how rare A fossil even is to ever find When so much of the past ain’t even there, We’re lucky that there’s any left behind. And if we died, wiped out, in plague or war – Well, when the dolphins rises, or super-ants, In sixty-five-odd million years or more, How would they know that we were smarty-pants ? Now I know what you’re thinking of, young man, Cos so was I, I thought I’d name that tune – So don’t interrupt, (not that you can) – But so I says “There’s footprints on the Moon !” “Perhaps” he says, “but even these Face meteorites and solar breeze, And the Voyagers ? Okay, but so very far away.”
Steel structures ? Not a chance, he said – Rusted, melted, eaten, and the trail is cold. The same with plastic, silicon, or lead – The only stable currency is gold. But not out here, where wind and rain can bite, And bring the highest mountains down to sand – But locked up in the Earth, well out of sight, With pottery and diamonds shaped by hand. And as for bones, we do ourselves no favours, By burying just six-feet deep in loam, And never mind cremation ! But our saviours Are those who drowned a mile beneath the foam – Sunk in shifting silt with little oxygen, ahoy ! Or in summat tough and clearly fake and littered by the score – And here’s where we finally come to you, old boy – It’s concrete ! Especially with rebar through its core. And when it’s in the pilings of a bridge, Then it’s already buried, safe as houses ! Okay lads, over here a smidge…and down he goes… A rat, I suppose, to join the future mighty mouses. I hope he makes it big some day – How fitting for his feet of clay To join a concrete shroud – my son would be so proud !
Most reinforced concrete structures begin crumbling after just a few decades due to the steel rebar rusting inside the slabs. Presumably this building site is using newer carbon fibre bars to ensure it can outlast the mountains.
detail from Sleeping Girl by an unknown 1600s artist working in Rome
Undreamt
I’ve heard there’s folk who sleep but never dream – That seems like a waste of a night, When I think how my mind is a-gleam with delight. But point of fact, they do alright, Just shutting down for hours on end Affording them the time to mend, While not distracted by the random streams That dreamers love to wend.
I know a girl who never dreams a wink, She simply goes to sleep. Her nights, she says, are always dark and quiet, Hosting not a peep. She’s heard, of course, about our world of maybe And of brooding guilt, But has never spent a single night within The fantasies we’ve built.
I’ve heard there’s folk who sleep but never fly, They wake like a minute has passed A third of their life slips by so fast, But they can’t well miss what they never amassed. Some say they dream, but then never recall – But how do they know they’re forgetting it all ? Perhaps an echo that won’t quite die, A shadow of the evenfall ?
I know a girl who feels no loss, She’s done just fine with what she has, With her endless deep and silent nights Without the freeform jazz. What matters, she says, is not what happens In our nightly world of fake, But rather what we do and who we are While we’re awake.
Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.
Telepathy – could it be radio ? Could we ever evolve to receive it ? You’d better believe it ! Pigeon already can, you know, Or at least, the magnetic field, So science has revealed. And then there’s electricity, Made by the platypus and eel To help them stun or feel. And, for sheer simplicity, We all see visible light, or course – Well, that’s the self-same force ! But could we ever transmit ? Even bio-luminescence, Is a rare and gloomy presence, Though it looks like it might fit – Lengthening the waves it sends, Detected only by its friends Who see much deeper in the red – Though still strictly line-of-sight, And not exactly bright. So next – a wire inside the head, An aerial – but what does it solve ? And how could it ever evolve ? And the energy required To beam-out further than a voice Will never make it nature’s choice. No, we’ll never be wired, We’ll never buzz with secret speech – At least, not till we’re cyborgs each…
I’ll gladly say I love you, If you don’t ask if I love you More than all the stars above – For what mere girl can stir up so much love To turn the sternest head ? Nuclear fusion, supernovas, black hole cuties, Diamond-cored and shifted ruby-red – It isn’t fair that I compare you To the very heavens’ beauties Turning all the inky velvet pearled – For they are truly gems from out this world.
I’ll gladly say I love you, If you don’t ask if I love you Till the saline seas run dry. For what mere girl can draw out such a sigh To spring the harshest heart ? Continents crashing, mountains leaping, plates migrating, Magma-cored and slowly wrenched apart – It isn’t fair that I compare you To the very land creating Granite, quartz, and crystals, forged and furled – For they are truly gems within this world.
I’ll gladly say I love you, If you don’t ask if I love you Even more than life itself – For what mere girl can equal so much wealth To spark the jadest eye ? Bejewellèd beetles, primrose blossom, eagles soaring, Helix-cored and left to multiply – It isn’t fair that I compare you To the fruits of blind exploring – Trunks and scales and proteins tightly curled – For they are truly gems upon this world
I’ll gladly say I love you If you don’t ask if I love you Like a this or that or other-hand – For what mere boy can try to understand What all this wonder means ? Ricochet rapture, all things quickly, nothing mildly, Empty-cored and barely out my teens – It isn’t fair that you compare me To a firefly flitting wildly Through the endless lures in which I’m swirled – I’ve never known such gems for all the world.
Ev’ry time we turn the music on And spin that single, dream that dream, We’re really lis’ning to the Man. For ev’ry time we place that needle, Fire that laser, hit that stream, We’re all just following the Plan.
Rock & roll ain’t noise pollution, But it sure is toxic waste To manufacture vinyl, drop by drop. And digital is nothing without phones, Upgraded in a haste – The beat goes on, the beat must never stop.
The constant chemicals that we abuse Ain’t pills and coke, They’re plastic pop and heavy metal ores. For all our music’s rock-music in the end, To burn and smoke – We’re so unhip, we groove to dinosaurs.
And where is all this power from to fight the power ? Nukes and coal. Our phones get fat while the rainforest gets thinned. How can we let the sunshine in To let the records roll ? The answer, dudes, is blowing in the wind.
My first twins, way back in infants, Were Maisie & Daisy. Or was it Daisy & Rose…? Either way, their namers were lazy, Whichever version they chose.
In second’ry school, I met the Sterlings, Jenny & Tom, (Always spoken that way round). With an Scottish Pa and American Mom, And nicknamed two-for-a-pound.
At college, reading quantum symmetry, Alfie & Ollie, As close as you get. Sharing a coffee, sharing a brolly, Sharing a karaoke duet.
On the reception desk at work Sat Carrie and Claire – Each geminus trying to be unique With diff’rent clothes and diff’rent hair, But dead the same in how they speak.
Now on the local council, Were bipartisans Rhys and Ariadne – Two-faced politicians ! Their name, it always seemed to me, Belonged to competing naming-traditions.
And down the club, in mirror shades, There’s Barry, on his own. I’ve met his brother (forget his name), Alike to the very bone. He somehow felt like surplus, all the same.
The last set of duals, to date, are my own – Baby 1 and Baby 2. So what should I call them, my clone-i-kins ? A running theme ? No, that won’t do, Then they’d forever be but half-a-twins.
Bronze effigy of Edward the 3rd in Westminster Abbey
To the Future
My world was taught in your history class, In half a chapter your teacher rushed through. Somewhen between a turning point And some other event which we never knew. My world just probably made you bored, Learning the dates of a notable few – But not of my name – I never was found In the textbooks on which you scribbled and drew.
Maybe then I was nobody special, Somebody whom you can safely ignore. Never improved a million lives – Never brought hatred, hunger, and war. Maybe then I was nobody special, Maybe achieved next to nothing at all. But still I meant to a couple of dozen, And for those the closest, an awful lot more.
You may then think that I was unknown, Unrecorded in sadness and mirth. Save for the parish’s register-book Where my name’s still getting its three-entries’ worth. Maybe you gotten my census or tax, My causes of death and my weighing at birth. But never be thinking that this is my lot, All that I left from my time on this Earth.
Never get thinking that I didn’t count, Or thinking I’m someone you never need. For all that you laugh at my primitive ways, Just never forget that we nobodies breed. Even the famous had parents of unknowns, As did all the riff-raff who helped them succeed. So there must be hundreds, or thousands by your time, In whose chain-genetics I mean much indeed.
It is claimed that anyone living in Britain today and whose family have been living here for several generations will lmost certainly be a direct descendent of King Edward the Third, who died in 1377. Of course, if I’m, say, 24 generations down the line, that means I have over 830,000 great*21 grandparents, though quite a few of those will be dupliates. Not that the poems about him, of course.
I saw a lepidopter’s case, A peon to the butterfly. With filigree of carapace From abdomen to compound eye. The duffer who possessed these critters Spoke at loving length of flitters.
I wondered how this gent possessed Their tiny feet and stain-glass wings, For clearly one who so obsessed Could never harm so precious things – Therefore, it must surely follow, Ev’ry bodyshell was hollow.
These weren’t spent, discarded parts – For butterflies can never shed – They never get a dozen starts, And only gain their wings to spread Upon their change to adulthood – They change for once and change for good.
Maybe then they’re not rejected, Rather they are shiny new – Here displayed to be selected By the crawling grubs who queue – So they choose their new quintessence As they quit their adolescence.
Some are brighter, some are duller, Some are nippy, some enlarged – Pick a model, pick a colour, Carbon-framed and sugar-charged. Are you a grounded caterpillar ? You should check these stats – they’re killer !
Rhyming Couplets 