Unrequited
She sent me a poem,
My darling,
A poem,
A poem she sent me,
My sweet Holly Hughes.
“I wrote you a poem,
My darling,
A poem,
A poem I wrote you,
My Michael, my muse.
I hope you can cherish,
My darling,
My poem,
My poem you cherish,
I so hope you do.”
I wish I could cherish
My darling,
Your poem,
Your poem, to cherish
As I cherish you.
Set my Verses Free !
Brethren, Sistren, time has come,
To rend this rhet’ric chain
That keeps our poems tum-de-dum
And ends each line in train.
Enough ! Why must our efforts follow form ?
Enough ! Why must their rhyming be the norm ?
Enough, I say, bring forth the storm !
Blow down this old refrain !
I call on you, eschew all those
Whose meter always chimes.
You doubt how we with formless prose
Can fight these structured times ?
We must ! Until their villanelles concede.
We must ! Until their odes and sonnets bleed.
We must, I say, so take my lead:
Reject this curse of rhymes !
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
“The Kingdom of God is a mustard seed,
The leastest of all of the seeds of the earth,
From out which the greatest of herbs shall be freed,
With branches so stout for the birds to find berth.”
“But Master, are then not the seeds of the duckweed,
Or even the orchid, or poppy, or rue,
Yet ever more tiny, yet too they succeed ?
From dust on the breeze, so the wilderness grew.
Whyfore is mustard so sacred ?
If smallness is wanted, when all’s said and done,
Then surely the Kingdom of God should be second to none ?
To carpenters, all wood is worthy,
But farmers know not ev’ry stem is a beam,
And there’s more to croft than a prophet can dream.”
“Then look at the size of the mustard and poppy:
The former grows three times the height of the latter.
Within such a speck lies so giant a crop, see,
And we should remember that, next time we scatter.”
“But Master, if increase in size is so vital,
Then why not the mulberry, grapevine, or cane ?
There surely are worthier plants for the title,
For look at the growth of the poplar and plane !
Whyfore is mustard so sacred ?
The not-tallest herb from the not-smallest seed.
And surely the Kingdom of God is a tree, not a weed ?
To fishermen, all land is constant,
But farmers know not ev’ry bud will bare fruit –
And there’s more to a plant than a leaf and a root.”
“But those other plants are not found in the garden –
Their seeds are but sown by the wind, not the hand.
And mustard grows tall and its branches will harden,
So even the nests of the birds can it stand.”
“But Master, the mustard grows tall in late summer,
And then, as an annual, each winter it dies.
When nesters are building, this plant’s still a comer,
And still till the fledglings have long filled the skies.
Whyfore is mustard so sacred ?
For any birds perching must cause it to quake.
But surely the Kingdom of Heaven won’t tremble and break ?
To parables, all things are symbols
But farmers know not ev’ry shrub is a rose,
And there’s more to a seed than the fact that she grows.”
In terms of the ratio between the volume of the seed and the volume of the plant it fell from, Jesus would be hard-pressed to better the Coast Redwood: Wikipedia gives the seeds a size of 4mm x 1mm (including wings – about four times longer than a mustard seed), and let’s say they are 0.5mm deep. Let’s be generous and assume they are perfect rectangles, so each will have a volume of 2mm3, or 1/500 millionth of a cubic metre. The tallest known tree today is Hyperion at 115m, though the most massive is Grogan’s Fault with a main trunk volume of 1084m3 as at 2014, and that doesn’t include the branches or roots (though who knows how one calculates such a thing). Let’s call it a 1000m3 – we therefore have a size increase of 542 billion times the seed that grew it !
However, Grogan has nothing on Pando, a grove of Quaking Aspens that are infact all clones sharing a root system. Wikipedia gives its estimated weight at 6 million kilos, and according to Penn State University the average green wood weighs 714 kg/m3, so 6 million kilos of tree has a volume of 4,284,000 metres3. Unfortunately, I cannot find an indication online as to the size of the seeds, but the US Forestry Service states that there are “very light, 5,500 to 8,000 clean seeds per gram”. If we take the lower figure, then that single Aspen seed which spawned Pando has put on 33 trillion times its own mass.
However, give omniscient Jesus his due, he surely knew that redwoods would not thrive in arid Canaan, and this was likely why he didn’t bring them up. However, Canaan contains both Aspens (albeit Eurasian, not Quaking) and their cousins Poplars (White and Black), and the King James Version mentions ‘poplar’ twice – once in Genesis 30:37 (the famous ‘goats staring at streaky rods give birth to streaky kids’ experiment), and again in Hosea 4:13. Some translations also change ‘willow’ for the archeologically-correct ‘poplar’ in Psalm 137:2. But…the seeds are often accompanied by hairs making them appear much larger. What about a more down-to-Earth comparison ?
I can find no statistics on the average weights of garden plants, but TheSeedCollection.com (which sells them) states that there are around 360 Black Mustard seeds/gram, and Wikipedia says that a gram of Poppy seeds will get you 3300 seeds (there is no mention of Poppies in the KJV, but there is archeological evidence that the Philistines introduced them – indeed maybe they even formed part of Isaiah 40:6’s ‘flowers of the field’). Therefore, each Mustard seed weights the equivalent of 9 Poppy seeds, so even though a fully-grown Black Mustard plant is 2 metres tall (Britannica) and a full grown Poppy only 1 metre (Wikipedia) – it’s hard to imagine that the Mustard weighs nine times as much (remember, they have hollow stems). Though based on the image below, they look about a quarter of the volume so maybe the mustard seeds are more dense ? Incidentally, Wolffia is a type of duckweed, including the world’s smallest flowering plant, so no wonder their seeds are so teeny.
A Hat that Lets the Rain in
The king awoke one morning
And he couldn’t find his crown,
So he rang out for his footman
To bring forth his ermine gown,
Then ordered for the palace
To be hunted upside down –
And if it were still missing,
To send men upon the town.
His reason for such urgency
Was really very plain,
That if the king is crownless,
Then he rule goes down the drain –
For if he stands bareheaded
How will peasants know his reign ?
A king without a coronet
Is thoroughly mundane.
Fetch it ! Find it !
Capture it and mind it !
All your heads are bloody shreds
If someone has maligned it !
The soldiers rummaged ev’ry house,
And prodded ev’ry nook.
They barged upon the merchantfolk,
And half their wares they shook
Incase the prize was hid within,
Exposing crown and crook.
And if it weren’t, the goods were wrecked,
So clumsy was their look.
They burst upon the womenfolk
In most ungentle ways –
Their conduct was improper,
And their language coarse of phrase.
They entered ev’ry schoolroom,
Ev’ry salon, mill and maze.
But still it was not gainedfast,
And the town was all ablaze.
Search it ! Seek it !
Plunder it and wreak it !
All your eyes are filling pies
If somebody should sneak it !
The aldermen and dowagers
Were startled and incensed.
These worthies sought an audience,
Their grievances dispensed –
But found the King uncaring
Of the tumult he’d commenced.
They left with bitter passion
For the town to stand against –
“His majesty can issue
Any ruling or decree,
But that is all as naught to us
Who choose to disagree.
It’s time for him to realise
He’s just our employee,
And if we are unsatisfied,
It’s time to set him free.”
Pounce him ! Pry him !
Prison him and try him !
All our souls regain controls
If ev’ryone deny him !
The king awoke one morning
With his royal head uncrowned.
He spent that very evening
In cells of harsh surround.
He never understood it,
How his luck could so confound.
His coronet, in passing,
Was to never be refound.
Always Known As
Elizabeth has never liked her given name
And wants to substitute or rearrange it –
Maybe she should shorten, though that does seem tame:
Elly, Lisa, Bette – they all estrange it.
No, they’re common, twee and lame,
And all too lacking in acclaim.
So she must start afresh, aflame !
She mustn’t just shortchange it.
Elizabeth has never liked the name she’s got,
But ev’ryone who knows her knows her this way –
And even if she calls herself by who-knows-what,
It won’t mean squat – they’ll never come and play.
They’re far too used to it, she knows – it’s what they say,
And even if they try, they’ll slip – they’ll slip a lot.
‘Elizabeth’ she’ll be until her dying day –
Unless she leaves them all behind, for those who know her not…
Salad Days
The radish is too ladish
To attract the carrot strips,
But tomatoes dream of celery
And blush down to their pips,
And the spring that’s in the onions
Send cucumbers a-twist,
So the feta beds the lettuce,
But the garlic stays unkissed.
State of the Art
You know, the public used to love
A crafted verse, a witty rhyme,
A fresh, bizarre or telling thought –
But that was all a diff’rent time.
These days, the public hardly notice,
’Cept for those they hear in songs –
Elsewhere in there gen’ral lives,
There’s nowhere where a verse belongs.
But, you know, I blame the poets,
Writing verse that’s too obscure –
Too aloof or crass or trendy,
Self-obsessed and immature.
No-one wants to please the masses,
No-one wants to catch their mood –
I tell you, light verse is the highest
Form of poetry pursued.
Ah, but listen to me whinging –
Who am I, so untoward ?
After all, I try to please you,
And my verse is still ignored !
A Little Way Off
“Watching you daydream is like watching flowers bloom in real time.”
– Russell McLondon
When your eyes unhook their gaze,
Slipping back in time by seconds,
When your thoughts roam out to graze,
Something not-remembered beckons.
You are taken through by where-knows what ?
It’s all so ev’ryday except for when it’s not –
Just like random numbers, only with less plot.
And your smile is sort-of-just –
And never meant for those who see it.
And your breath is held in trust –
Softly, slowly, then you free it.
Waiting for your day to recommence,
You’re floating off beyond the realm of making sense –
Just like in the movies, only less intense.
Resurgam
At architecture’s stony heart,
The most intrusive form of art –
The hardest form to just ignore
It’s always there, forevermore.
And yet, each ancient monolith
Must first be built so they may live –
And stand a thousand years, or one,
The wrecker’s ball will always come.
Now see this cycle gather pace
As sprawl eats up all empty space –
To build from floor to chimneypot,
We now must find a victim lot.
To build, we first must pull apart,
A former draughtsman’s work of art –
Each building that we fight to save
Is stood upon another’s grave.
Tillers of the Ground
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread
For here all the days of thy life,
And this is thy price when thou hearken instead
Now unto the voice of thy wife.
And the wheat thou shalt grow and shalt harvest and mill,
Where’erso the oak-tree may thrive,
Is fruit of the labours of farmers who till
To better the grains they shall scythe.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat of thy bread,
But sweet grow the grains in their ears –
For whilst thou lay pampered, they fattened each head
Since thousands and thousands of years.
Rhyming Couplets 