Take a reflecting telescope And point it anywhere up in the sky And what do you see with your all-seeing eye ? Cogs and drums and springs and rope, And the ticking of ellipsoid gears, By distance squared, by lighted years.
But can you find between the lights The constant-heavens’ clockwork soul That’s somewhere in the blackest hole ? We all are squinting through the sights – From omega to omicron, We seek the great automaton.
Alas, as mirrors have got clearer, So the wheels we saw have blurred As though the constant tick has slurred. And just as we were getting nearer, We misplaced our guiding stars Amongst the lost canals of Mars.
Proxima Centauri b by Ricardo Ramirez & James Jenkins
Welcome Proxima Bee
I heard you’d moved into the neighbourhood – So welcome to the Spiral Arm ! The stars are getting occupied – that’s good. It stops the gas clouds doing harm. We’re pretty much a quiet street Without a noisy supernova – Just a place for middle-stars to shine. And if your life-forms get beneath your feet, Then send them over – I’m sure they’d simply love to meet with mine !
Have you any moons about the place, To give a sense of scale ? I’ve just the one, but that’s alright. The darkside lacks a little grace, The seas are rather pale – But hey, it still looks heavenly at night. So call me on the long-wave radio, I’m always in. I hope that ours is not too loud, We tend to make a din. And you are such a quiet thing, I’d barely know you’re there at all, So close and yet so small…
So welcome to the Local Zone, The garden of the Milky Way – Welcome home, and long to stay ! So glad to find a fellow stone With whom to play, a friendly face – It’s good to know I’m not alone In all this empty space.
Proxima Bee is very-likely tidally locked, which I’ve explored some more elsewhere. It’s also usually written with a lower case b, to show it’s a planet and not a companion star. I have considered this convention and rejected it.
There comes a time in ev’ry poet’s jotter-book, A time when odes and ballads must be set aside, Where clever wordplay fails to catch the sombre mood, And pleasing couplets suffer from a glut of rhyme. And so the chastened poet takes a modern look, Discarding all the baggage that had been their guide – All that regularity – predictable and crude – And even rhythms jangle with their tyranny of time. That stuff works for jokey stuff For dum-de-dum and call-my-bluff But how can Terror, how can Truth Be captured in the games of youth ?
And so there comes a time when ev’ry poet Makes the same mistake they always make – They try to turn their free-verse loose, because They think that’s how such verse must be – Instead, they force unforcèd-ness, and blow it ! Instead, their archful art is bland and fake. And finally, they see what skilful rhyming does: It emphasises by its very unreality. The Light Brigade, Decorum est, They fuck you up, Before I rest – A decent couplet tells us what A thousand noble words cannot.
Ordered by social convention into inaction, I sit at my desk and abstain – I keep my head down and stare at my pen till I hear The murmur of morning again. Like most, I start on my shutdown at ten-fifty-eight, And end at eleven-oh-four, To cover the randomly-synchronised watches of colleagues – And never mind minding the store.
Across the room, someone is typing. (Is that still allowed ?) Their rat-a-tat keystokes clatter. A phone rings out the alarm, which nobody answers, Till voicemail settles the matter. I ought to be thinking, I know, of tommies and trenches, Of birdsong, bombardements and screams – Instead, I just notice this shuffle’ing silence-by-rote – My thoughts are deserters, it seems.
You often speak of they and them, So, so shall I. You see, I’m firmly one of them Whom you decry as sheep or swine Who are too careless with their gaze. But Don, I also use that phrase, I also have my thems and theys – And you are one of mine.
For you, like they, have ordered me To venerate your saints: Picasso, Rothko, and Matisse – Apostles in their paints. Never must my adulation cease Upon your feted clutch – But who’s the Zeus of all these gods ? Of course, your martyred Dutch !
I know, I know, it’s treason, But I still think that depression, Though it’s pretty good a-reason Is a really bad excuse For his whingey self-obsession, And his self-harming abuse, And for his total lack of wit, And being such an all-round shit.
But what’s the use ? You won’t agree. And truth to tell, that was obtuse of me – Both me and him are far more complicated Than we either you or I have stated. And anyway, let’s judge the work and not the man – Who cares if he’s a relic or a brash young Turk ? Except you’re doing all you can To make the man the work.
So here I stand – a heretic – A unbowed Philistine and hick. For Don, though I can listen fine, I’ll never like the tune he played. Ironic’ly, I quite like yours – A modern hymn to hector and persuade. I guess that Vincent makes you happy, And for that, I’m happy too. Just never try to set me free.
When humans send themselves extinct, then who will take their place ? The chimpanzees ? Or have they missed their chance at master-race ? Parrots, crows, or even pigeons ? But they lack the hands to build – Dolphins hunter-gather while the oyster-beds remain untilled, Yet octopuses have the arms, and boy, are those arms skilled ! But life for them is short and done – they’ll never make it number one.
But cats have cunning, cunning paws, And curiosity to dare – And even if the reaper calls, Then cats have lives to spare. So some are fat and some are cool, And all, at night, are grey – They walk this world, yet never rule, And leave the mice to play.
Now mice and rats are shrewd, for sure, but hygiene lets them down: Too many fleas, too many plagues, to ever wear the crown. An elephant remembers, but they sometimes are mistaken, While bears will sleep their lives away and never reawaken, And pigs are pretty clever, though they still end up as bacon, And bees will sting to save their hives, yet never learn it costs their lives.
But cats can look upon a king – So could they wear the boots and chain ? Alas, though ev’ry bell should ring, They’ll never turn again. It takes a team to build a throne, Yet cats won’t pull together – The cat who always walks alone Must walk alone forever.
Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel
Unamused
I used to walk with Grecians ev’ry day: Callíope would whisper in my eager ear Of battles fought for kingdoms won for heroes slain, While Clío often passed my way With tales of nations ancient, far and near, And Thália could make me laugh a hurricane.
Melpómene just loved a fallen king, While Érato was swooning over some romance, As pious Pólyhýmnia was lilting psalms. Eutérpe, now: that girl just loved to sing !, Which always caused Terpsíchore to up-and-dance While even swot Uránia had starry charms.
I used to dream with Grecians ev’ry night. And thanks to them, I wrote as fast as ink would run My songs and tales and poems, all my brain could hold. And all of it was doggerel and trite ! For all of my ideas, there was not a-one That captured even half an ounce of what they sold.
I’m better now – a lifetime lived and well, Of sights and thoughts and loves and wisdoms heard, Has brought me to the seasoned man I am today But I am now, alas, beyond their spell – For all of my ability to turn a word, I cannot think of anything I need to say…
The names are given in their Greek form, which is slightly different from the Latin alternative we may be more familiar with, hence the accents to spring the correct syllables.
To those of us who cannot sing, The songs will always taunt. To those of us without the swing, Who haven’t got a note to bring – The muted melodies still haunt Each dried-up vocal spring. To those of us who cannot sing, The songs will always taunt.
Making music – that’s the thing ! A flourish and a flaunt. But we who cannot even wring A reedy rasp or piping ping Are ever banished from their jaunt, With not a hook to sling. To those of us who cannot sing, The songs will always taunt.
Fiddlers three may please the king, Or even John of Gaunt – For who can let the doldrums cling When songs are rousing on the wing ? They chirp away so nonchalant, Unknowing how they sting. To those of us who cannot sing, The songs will always taunt.
A Market Stall by Candlelight by Petrus van Schendel
Fresh Pantoums, Only a Shilling !
Oranges, lemons, and citrons and limes, Cockles and mussels and oysters alive, Tatler, Spectator, the Post and the Times, Parsley and sage and sweet basil and chive !
Cockles and mussels and oysters alive, Burgundy, claret, madeira and sack, Parsley and sage and sweet basil and chive, Cottons and calicos – red, white and black !
Burgundy, claret, madeira and sack, Currants and raisins, sultanas and prunes, Cottons and calicos, red, white and black, Ballads and broadsides and tuppenny tunes !
Currants and raisins, sultanas and prunes, Mercury powder to kill all your nits, Ballads and broadsides and tuppenny tunes, Coffee for merchants and lawyers and wits !
Mercury powder to kill all your nits, Books for the scholar and books for the squire, Coffee for merchants and lawyers and wits, Labourers, porters and servants for hire !
Books for the scholar and books for the squire, Scrag-end and brisket and trotters and bones, Labourers, porters and servants for hire, Heather for good-luck and Gypsy-charmed stones !
Scrag-end and brisket and trotters and bones, News of the morning and news of the wars, Heather for good-luck and Gypsy-charmed stones, Come see my wares from the far-distant shores !
News of the morning and news of the wars, Tatler, Spectator, the Post and the Times, Come see my wares from the far-distant shores: Oranges, lemons, and citrons and limes !
Verses for the writing-of than reading-out – Verses, it is often said, The better to be left unread Than wallow in the gloomy, doomy Plath-itudes they spout. Breaking rules because they’re rules, And rhyming words that barely rhyme: They have the will, they have the tools, Yet cannot make their couplets chime.
So unpolished, and yet so smooth of face, Just wide-eyed cynics unaware of what they can’t achieve – So desperately earnest and so hopelessly naïve, (With both the dots obsessively in place.) Derivative and doctrinaire, Just swotty, spotty pedants with delusions of a cosmic truth. But honestly, we’ve all been there – For ev’ry famous poet was an adolescent in their youth:
Torrid teenage Tennyson, And Dylan-esque and Lennon-ish, And shilly-shally Percy Bysshe And happy Hardy, anyone ? It’s true – I may not be as great As any muse you care to rate, But oh, when I was but a lad I drivelled ev’ry bit as bad !
So sport your hearts out, mopey mop-heads- Set our world to right by writing, Set our toothless prose to biting – Wither with your sneers and drop-deads. Be yourselves and be your worst, And wring out ev’ry beat and letter – Never stop your foolish verse Until your verse is better.
Rhyming Couplets 