All Life Is Here
They group all life with near-the-same –
To keep on track, they’ve got a list.
A rose by any other name’s
Still Rosa to a botanist.
I stole this joke from noted Trilobytist Richard Fortey.
All Life Is Here
Category: Short Pieces
Ecce Humanitas
Ecce Humanitas
I would build a monument within Saint Peter’s, Rome –
A monument to martyrs who preached heresy.
Who stood by their convictions when tortured and alone
On principals of science and philosophy.
I would build a monument to passions unafraid
When Quisitors would dowse the light they shined.
Their sacrifice was equal to that which Jesus made –
They gave their lives to save all humankind.
Bringing Juvelilia Week Part 2 to a close (there will be no Part 3, thankfully) is a poem inspired by Giordano Bruno, a fore-runner to Galileo and proponent of Copernican theory – who was tried, tortured and burned by the Flat-Earthers in the Catholic Church.
Apologists claim that his crime was heresy, not sol-centrism, and as late as 2000 (According to Wikipedia) Cardinal Angelo Sodano said of his inquisitors that they “had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life” – well, everything short of not actually burning him at the stake, anyway. And Pope John-Paul the Second lamented “the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth”, so that’s all right then, no harm no foul.
Incidentally, the statue above (on the very spot of his pyre) by Ettore Ferrari is from 1889 and paid for by the local Freemasons as a deliberate middle finger to the then-Pope, who I won’t bother to name. (Wow, who’d’a’thunk I’d ever have anything positive to say about Freemasons ?) Its plaque contains the words Il Secolo Da Lui Divinato (From The Age That He Predicted), which is a line that any poet would be proud of, though I don’t know why it also labels our Giordano as ‘A Bruno’ – surely he was The Bruno…
Calling All Stations
Calling All Stations
Enjambment – it’s a nasty little habit
That’s likely to derail the locomotion of your meter –
For lines that run-away are sure to rabbit,
So prose may ride expresses, but the slow train sounds the sweeter.
Yet another poem about poetry, but at least it’s short. I’ve always been puzzled by where modern poets choose to break their lines, particularly as when they read it out, there’s often no pause whatsoever between the lines. The verb ‘to rabbit’ is used here in its cockney sense meaning to chatter – nothing to do with running, except the mouth.
In the Nash’nal Int’rest
In the Nash’nal Int’rest
Ev’ry, dammit, ev’ry time
My ev’ry sports a ’postrophe,
You howl and howl my spelling crime
As tho’ you were the boss o’ me.
But still they pop extr’ordin’ry,
Dishon’rab’ly, inord’nat’ly,
By lis’ning out for how it’s said
When diff’rently from how it’s read.
So speech shall speak, and lit’rature obey –
Just deal with it, you soph’mores – cos the commas stay !
Nothing with a Face
Nothing with a Face
I won’t eat a creature with eyeballs to see,
Nor noses or ears will I hurt.
So that’ll be mussels and starfish for tea,
And sponges and worms for dessert.
The Inertia of Tradition
The Inertia of Tradition
It always has to be that way, because it’s always been that way –
And if there were another way, already it would be that way.
You really think you can disclaim a thousand years of just-the-same ?
The lesson you will learn at last: your future lies all in the past.
Real Ladies Prefer Cubic Zirconium
Real Ladies Prefer Cubic Zirconium
Diamond – as hard as the universe –
A nebula trapped under ice.
Forged in the heart of a supernova,
Polished by continents tumble‘ing over.
Diamond – as hard as a warlord’s curse –
Each sparkle a bullet, the price.
Landscapes are pillaged for so little won –
Carbon for carbon, a thousand to one.
I suppose the pecksniffs will insist that zirconium can only refer to the elemental metal, and that the crystaline form of the dioxide should be referred to as cubic zirconia – but since I never listen to pecksniffs I can’t be sure.
Poetic Truth
Poetic Truth
1.
You are so wrong, so very very wrong,
To think that rhymes wreck the verse.
Sure, they get used where they don’t belong,
And when ill-used are a curse.
And yes, they take their time to mature
In the life of the poet’s pen –
They cannot be nervous, must always be sure,
And practiced agen and agen.
2.
They write their verses blank and free,
And barely bait the hook –
But Keats and Frost and Tennyson
Can still be grasped by anyone.
They write their verses free and blank,
And barely sell a book –
While Blake and Burns and Betjamin
Can still sell-out and fetch ’em in.
3.
I tell myself, its cos they rhyme –
They hate me that, they hate me that.
I know my verse is in its prime –
They must see that, they must see that.
But still I always get rejected,
While some prosy tripe’s selected.
Must be just how I suspected –
Must be that, it must be that.
Mongers
Mongers
We used to be just simple merchants –
Iron, fish, and cheese,
And jack-of-produce costermen –
The traders in the bare necessities.
But now we’re only spoken off
As rumour, scare, and war –
We’re jack-the-lads of shadowmen,
Now hawking abstract concepts door-to-door.
Auto-Eulogy
Auto-Eulogy
I lived the life I lived because
I found myself alive with life to spare.
I sang the songs I sang because
The songs were short, and cheap, and ev’rywhere.
I did the things I did because
The things I did were needing to be done.
I trod the path I trod because
I had to tread a path, and here was one.
Rhyming Couplets 