Into the Future, Shambling & Mumbling

Star Wars Zombies
Star Wars Zombies by Fredrik Edén

Into the Future, Shambling & Mumbling

Lookit all you zombies, living lives like you was thinking –
But I know you’re just the puppets to the Codebooks in the sky.
Lookit all you statues – yeah, you don’t fool me by blinking –
Cos I know you’re really dummies – and the suck is, so am I !
Ev’ry single doll of us is following the Script
With its plot for ev’ry atom all controlled in all its jazz –
Gotta keep ’em tight in line, you can’t have strays or space-time’s ripped,
And then how can the Future come to pass like it already has ?
Of course, it’s all that Albert’s fault –
Him and his flash equation.
Had to open up the vault
And loose the tachyon invasion –
Had to prove, and quite routine,
His theory for the time machine.
And whoops, he’s sent our free will sinking.
Hello zombie.  Goodbye thinking.

Now when it comes to sci-fi, I can take a little licence –
Like your artificial gravity – we know all that’s all bunk –
And beaming-down and warp-speed – well, the concepts have entice-ence –
We all so want to so believe, like any cyberpunk.
But daddy of them all, be it phone-box or DeLorean,
Is scorching up the past-times when they ain’t so dead and gone.
Sticking-up two fingers to the know-it-all historian,
And making sure our parents got to meet and get it on.
But don’t you see the problem here ?
The Future is already there –
And all we do must all adhere
To make it happen right and square.
So ev’ry choice is just a lie,
We’re ruled by Codebooks in the sky,
We’re patsies with our choices stripped,
We’re puppetss to the Master Script.

Lookit all we zombies, living lives like we got lives to live,
And not some pre-determined plot to parrot as we plod.
Lookit all we robots, got our program and executive,
To serve the algorithm of our micro-managed god.
Ev’ry single slob of us is following the show,
With the final season written long before the pilot aired.
But we’re still convinced it’s streaming live, and watch it blow-by-blow,
As we’re stuffing-in the popcorn – yet we none of us are spared.
Of course, it’s all that Albert’s fault –
Unless…old Albert’s wrong instead !
And if infact causality,
Just like us zombies, is undead…
But how can Time and Space apply
Without the Codebooks in the sky ?
Yet if the Future ain’t our grey-boss –
Goodbye zombie, hello chaos.

The Elusive Mr Morningstar

Satan
Satan by William Blake

The Elusive Mr Morningstar

(In reply to Mick Jagger)

Who was it brought flood and killed
Now all bar eight and two-by-two ?
And who was it the plagues fulfilled,
And ev’ry firstborn slaughtered through ?
And who was it dictated Law
With racist hates and petty spites ?
And who was it commanding Saul
To genocide Amalekites ?

Who was it with love divine
Came not with peace but with a sword ?
And who was it made Constantine
Kill all who prayed to Jove as Lord ?
And who was it Indulgence sold,
And rent the schismic Church apart ?
And who was it sought relic-gold,
And clast the icons, smashed the art ?

Who was it turned Papal might
Crusading east with zealous cares ?
And who was it sent butcher knights
To Temple Mount and Friday Prayers ?
And who was it built witches’ pyres ?
And made that bigot Luther split ?
And who was it filled Henry’s ires,
And Bloody Mary’s roasting spit ?

Who was it set Cortez loose,
And murd’rous-censor Thomas More ?
And who was it hid child abuse ?
And Cromwell’s terror ?  Holy war ?
And who roused Torquemada’s will ?
And Galileo’s truths deny ?
And who keeps Ulster troubled still ?
I swear it wasn’t I.

Seismic Sirens

Vesuvius
Vesuvius in Eruption by Joseph Wright

Seismic Sirens

“A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.”

– Geology Now

It only takes an ankle,
Or the merest hint of wrist,
And oh, calamities abound !
These wenches shock the very ground !
The seething earth they rankle
With each rendezvous and tryst.
It only takes a look or pout
To make the boiling magma spout.

Midnight Glorious

angel
Flavelle Angel by Gustav Hahn

Midnight Glorious

An angel came into my room
One night, and hovered by my bed,
With subtle beats of golden wings,
And gentle light about his head.
And while my shock about my guest
Continued, so he spoke to me:
“Why, pray, shall you so hate God
When all He shows is love for thee ?”
“The Lord…?” I stammered once or twice,
Then found some voice from who knows where
To make reply “I hate him not,
The truth is that I do not care.”
“Now come,” the angel mocked with jest,
“For all your claims of disbelief,
Why would you spend so much strong speech
On what should matter slight and brief ?
If you upon such proof insist
As only science can provide,
Then, please, we wish you go in peace,
And as you go, let us abide.”
And as his light began to fade
And too his form began to fly,
I softly said, perhaps too late:
“So I shall you.  Shall you so I ?”

The Ascent of Icarus

Icarus
Icarus by FlamingPrints

The Ascent of Icarus

Now hark, my son, you take these wings,
And fly !  You fly, because you can !
You fly for all your strength is worth,
Until all lands are in your span.
And you see all that I can’t see,
And never mind what gods may say –
You fly on up, towards the sun,
And maybe touch his face some day…
You fly, and you become a god !
For gods are made by what they know –
So you learn what the gods won’t say
And you take what the gods won’t show.
Just like Prometheus before,
And just like Newton yet to come,
You are the god the gods most fear
Who spreads the word and bangs the drum.
They claim the sun will melt your wings –
They scoff, until your dreams are heard
By star-struck brothers on a beach,
And giant leaps beyond the birds.
There’s many let their dread of hubris
Quench the spark that’s just begun –
But others leap with open wings
And dare to fly – so fly, my son !

Bless You, Dammit !

Garden of Earthly Delights
detail from the Hell panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Bless You, Dammit !

Save a place for me in Hell
Should you get there first.
Get the drinks in, anyhow,
And coin a joke or two to tell,
Dress up in your fine attire,
(There’s not much point in skimping now.)
Cos soon I’ll hit that lake of fire
With a raging thirst.

Save a place for me in Hell
Cos I don’t believe –
Just like many cohorts swell,
Who lived it good and lived it well.
I reckon it can’t be so bad,
When friends like these are those who dwell.
It sure ain’t Heaven, so be glad –
And raise a toast to Eve.

Between the Grooves

black vinyl player
Photo by Anton Hooijdonk on Pexels.com

Between the Grooves

Paul is dead, man.  Miss him, miss him, miss him !
So I call out to the devil, and offer him my bed –
I tell him “Sleep with me, I’m not too young;
But bring my lover back, put his words into my head.”
Satan he hears me, he has me believe:
“Just play all your albums, and listen where they’re slurred.”
He says “It’s fun to smoke marijuana,
It changes all music and the way you hear the words.”
So here’s to my sweet Satan –
I hear, against the flow, hidden in the track
The voice of Paul.  Turn me on, dead man.
He speaks to me once more when I play the records back.

The odd-numbered lines are examples of backtracks, or backwards-masking, that people with more time and less care for scratches have found hidden in their favourite albums.

Just Another Face in the Choir

Just Another Face in the Choir

She rises to the golden glow
From ev’ry cloud beneath her feet,
And curls her hair in ringlets so,
In waves of strawb’ry, loose yet neat.
She pins each blossom into place
To form a halo round her tress,
And adds a paleness to her face,
And dons her fine and pleated dress.
She plucks her harp and tunes its strings,
And warms her voice to sweetermost.
And so, with flexed and polished wings,
She clocks-on to rejoins the host.

This poem was written in response to the painting shown above (sorry she’s so blurry).

The Land of the Saints

Cornubia
Cornubia by John Miller.  The fine detail is somewhat lost here, but every church (maybe just the mediaeval ones ?) has a shaft of light falling on it – you can just make out the larger shaft picking out Truro Cathedral (which also houses the painting).  Yes, I know the cathedral is Victorian, but it reuses some of the fabric of Truro parish church.

The Land of the Saints

They’re pious in Cornwall, or proud, or just quaint,
        Sennan and Bryvyth, Morwetha and Cleer
They name half their villages after a saint –
        Piran and Tudy, Winwillo, Gwinear
Not many Marys or Peters or Pauls,
        Nevet and Probus, Mabena and Breock
For ev’ry Saint Helen’s we find a Saint Mawes.
        Leven and Cuby, Wennapa and Feock
Our corporate saints have been roundly withstood,
        Sithney and Breward, Lalluwy and Ruan
For theirs are so local, old Cornish done good.
        Mylor and Sancreed, Illogan and Mewan

I’m sure I’m getting the emphasis wrong on some of these names, but that’s the beauty of English – anything goes, and my mispronunciation is just as valid as yours, especially when you definitely have never heard of these names before.  And yes, they’re Cornish, not English, but consider them now Anglisised.  And yes, I did just spell Anglisised with two esses – deal with it.