The Ocean Sunfish, Mola mola – Why the adjective at all ? Why the need for double mola ? Is it cos they’re so un-small ? Just a puffed-up pufferfish, And over-named to double-check – It moons around encumbered By this millstone round its neck. And yet, it turns out, other sunfish Share the genus and the name – And even unrelated fish Are rashly called the same. So fair enough, the ocean kind Is thusly dubbed to be precise. And as for mola-of-the-Mola – It’s so good, they named it twice.
The trouble with writers, back in that day, They never had chances to finish the job – Just splash on the whitewash, any old way, And promise and short-change and rob. Too many loose-ends and threpenny warts, Too many set-ups with no second coat – Till Misery’s suddenly out of his sorts, And the author is slashing our throats.
I came for satire, complexity, and human drama – but left with cyphers and a lecture…
The trouble with your aliens Is in their heads and mouths and eyes – It’s that they even have these things On Barnard’s Star and Saturn’s rings. ‘Convergent evolution’ can’t explain Your humans in disguise – It takes much more to say ‘out there’ Than silver skin and purple hair.
Just look at what we have on Earth – Octopuses, jellyfishes – These look far more alien Than a pointy-eared mammalian. But we buy into your blatant lies (In part against our better-wishes), As the only show in town, To get our fix of upside-down.
I know, I know, you still need human actors Who can play them – And we, the audience, must read Emotions in each xeno-breed. But honestly, such life should be As branches from a foreign stem – So vastly diff’rent body-planned, So freshly-weird and oddly-grand.
So think beyond the tooth and arm, The exo-shell and tentacle ! The trap your aliens befall – They just ain’t alien at all. For why would humans stride the stars If space is all identical ? Let’s have some art and CGI That let imaginations fly !
(Dedicated to Petra, Ozymandias & The New Colossus)
The Rose-Red City’s Lone and Level Sands Beside the Teeming Shore are fourteen strong – But that is not enough, when eager hands Have written their twelve-liners just too long. For status-conflict-outcome, that’s the key To stop our sonnets going to the dogs – But where is there a volta in these three ? They’re nothing more than pretty travelogues ! Well, Shelley never cared for rules or class, And who the hell is Burgon, anyway ? But as for Emma Lazarus – alas, Her tempest-tost are never led astray ! …But then…why must they pivot, ev’ry one…? Let’s have some change…! You see, that’s how it’s done !
Strike a note – an A – with a delay to fade away and underlay the next you play. Strike a note – an E – and you will see how easily it echoes free within the key. Now slide away and do you see how this delay shall carry me Across the stay, the next, and three, till they decay in filigree ?
When I rail against the bland sterility of Modern style, Then this is not the antidote I seek ! These cut-and-pasted noddy-boxes miss the measure by a mile, With all the mumbled sorries of the meek. Sure, their bricks are red, their roofs are pitched, their gables high and wide, But why the chimney-pots, for goodness sake ? Windows (though they’re never sashed) may these days keep the warmth inside, But why must all their glazing bars be fake ? All wrapped around such tiny rooms of hollow studs and plasterboard Which any neighbour’s sound can penetrate – And basements don’t exist, nor anywhere luggage can’t be stored, And the ceilings are so low, they suffocate. Of course, compared with houses of the past, they have a lot to offer – Plumbing, carpets, wires and insulation – But still they’re easy prey for ev’ry Brutalist and Bauhaus scoffer, As these clones have spawned across the nation. But worst of all, these mega-builders have the blueprints on their books Of many variations on the theme – And yet, in any field, they seem so terrified to mix the looks Incase there’s fewer profits left to cream. And oversighting councillors, with targets jacked and budgets slashed, Are powerless or spineless to allay. And so this new Jerusalem is jerry-built and pebble-dashed – And yet, still beats a high-rise any day !
Rhythms march in syllables, They count both on and off the beat, But syncopated signatures in words Can never fall as neat – They last too long, or maybe Not quite long enough to find a home – They fuel our fire and flour our fear, To foil and foul the metronome.
Once were dragons, so they say, In ancient times on ancient hills, In red and gold and green and grey, And some with teeth, and some with bills. They say they slept in riverbeds, Or lived in caves beneath the bats, And some were spawned with seven heads, And some would flock as thick as gnats.
Here be dragons, once-a-time, Their shrieks were oft upon the breeze, They flew where only geese could climb, And nested in the tallest trees. Their breath was hot, their blood was cold, Their snorts would burst in fiery jets. They snatched the sheep from out the fold, And plucked the fish from out the nets.
Here were dragons, hereabouts, With glossy coats of chequered scales, And some with whiskers on their snouts, And some with manes and feathered tails. Dragons ! Dragons, ev’rywhere ! A horde of wyverns, so it’s said. But none was safe within its lair From he who bore the Cross of Red.
Good old George – he fills the aisles As England’s saviour, brave and true. We love to hear his quests and trials, The wily beasts he stalked and slew. He chased the wyrm from out these Isles – But how I wish he’d spared a few ! If folks can live with crocodiles, They could have lived with dragons, too.
Rhyming Couplets 