The Land of Nod
Faith is like sleeping.
What dreams we conceive there
We always believe there,
Where no doubt may creep in.
But be not mistaken
By heavenly seemings
And wishful sweet-dreamings;
It’s time to awaken.
As Genesis 4:16 informs us, Nod is located on the East of Eden.
Fewer & Less
Actually, I think you’ll find,
For nouns of the countable kind,
We shouldn’t say there’s more at all
But manier bricks in mucher wall.
Immortal Remains
My mind I leave to science, to probe and to dissect,
To extract and to magnify each secret and regret.
To show up my ideas that I never got to note,
Or poems I was writing but I somehow never wrote,
Or stories for the telling that I never passed along,
Or maybe sweetest music for my never sung-out song.
Work swift with my ditherings, these children may yet make
An epitaph of dreams to be awoken at my wake.
Sashes & Splashes
I love to hear the raindrops from the dry-side of the window,
As they pitter-patter on the misty glass, kept well at bay –
The panes become my armour from the showers and the wind,
So I can watch the running rivulets, a quarter-inch away.
Mongeese
I’m far too much busy just watching these wonderful creatures
To care for your grammar.
They’re so like the ferrets and martens in habit and features –
They drown out your clamour.
They aren’t, though, that closely related (they’re closer to panthers),
They just look the same –
For evolution converges on similar answers,
And so does their name.
Ode to Laze
Lazy, far too lazy, far too idle,
Don’t ask me.
Far too needful of relaxing,
Far too dodgeful of all taxing
Action that disrupts my lethargy.
I don’t run when I can sidle,
I make sloths look suicidal,
Vegetate with pride –
So don’t ask me.
Monotongue
My Latin may be lacking,
My Dutch may be unknown,
In Thai and Greek I cannot speak,
My English stands alone.
If I can’t win with Mandarin,
I still might cast my a spell –
I shall compete with language sweet,
And use my English well.
The Words Become Flesh
Ev’ry book in the Bible
Is the Book of Numbers really,
With its chapters and its verses,
All ennumerated clearly.
And its drop-caps and its sub-heads,
And its footnotes full of freight –
Now there’s so much ink on its onion-skins,
It doubles up the weight !
Everything from Shells
Downs go up and downs go down,
As wave on wave of frozen ocean
Built each ridge and vale and crown
With ev’ry ancient tide in motion.
Tiny creatures swarmed the sea
And dropped their tiny plates all over,
From Stonehenge to Normandy
As deeply as the Cliffs of Dover.
Singular alga sounds all wrong, as if the term has become strictly a mass noun.
The Hubble Kaleidoscope
So many stars ! And the colours too !
Blurring and sharping into our view.
But best look quick how these nebulas burn –
For sooner or later, the lens must turn.
Rhyming Couplets 