The plant you gave so lovingly Is dying on my windowsill. I swear it’s not a metaphor, It’s just a drooping hellebore. I tend the plant so lovingly, And steadily it goes downhill. I swear its thrips and fungal pus Are meaningless in terms of us. This poor maltreated gift you chose, This sacrificial Lenten rose, Is no barometer of woes That gnarls and twists and guilts. It’s just a plant in dying throes That cannot blame or presuppose. The only thing this flower shows Is soil that’s poor in silts. I swear our love still blooms and grows, As surely as this other wilts. Whatever the bards or historians say, It’s not the pot-plant of Dorian Gray.
Jesus ? My word ! Oh my lord, it’s the boss… Well, I never expected to see you today – Except maybe just hanging out up on your cross… Yet it’s funny, but when as a kid we would pray, And the Reverend Thomas instructed our eyes To be scrupe’lessly be tight and respectfully shut, Still I’d sneak them half-open and squint at your thighs, Half-expecting you’d come down a moment and strut. When there’s no-one to see, would you take-up the chance To relax and to stretch, and to smoke, and to dance ?- Till the words of the prayer were quite lost to my trance. Yet you never showed even the hint you’re alive, So you hung just the same when we sipped on your blood, And you looked down as glum when we learned of the Flood, And you seemed as remote when our prayer-books would thud, And we mumbled or massacred Hymn Forty-Five.
But anyway, never mind my reminiscence, Just how long’s it been since you came round my way ? For somehow you faded in slow evanescence, Your black and white certainties merging to grey. And old Reverend Thomas was no help explaining The problem of evil or problem of gays, And so finally, even my lifelong ingraining Could not keep the wonder or stem the malaise. But reading the papers, there’s plenty of good news – From leprosy vaccines to movies and blues, And there’s juries, and voting, and self-tapping screws – When abandoned, alone, we learned how to be great. I had waited and waited back there in your church For some word or some action to come from your perch, But unheard was my questions, and unseen my search – Until now, when I find you, I find you too late.
As I was heading to Saint Ives, I passed a troupe with many lives, With many plays and songs and dance, As I was heading to Penzance.
As I was heading to Saint Just, They played for me, as well they must, And bid me “Come and join us, Friend !” As I was heading to Land’s End.
This piece of nonsense was inspired by the famous nursery rhyme, even though that probably refers to a different St Ives (who’d have thought there’d be two saints named Ive ?) The town in this poem is the Cornish seaside resort on the Penwith peninsula, which is also home to the Minack open-air theatre.
Oh dear, dear F1, You’re oh so keen to jump the gun. The slightest knock, and up you pop, Just barging past and to the top, And begging to be asked a question, Or to make a cool suggestion – Anything to lend a cyber hand.
Your happiness is my command, And, oh, you’ll never understand, F1, old son, You simply can’t ! I want Escape ! I want F2 ! I’m sorry, son, but get it through your key: If help I need, it won’t be you, you see. It’s never you.
Nothing to say again, nothing to say, So I say all my nothing in hope of a spark – And say and say it all twice, anyway.
I’ve had not a notion for many-a day, I’m ser’ously thinking of quitting this lark: I’ve nothing to say, again – nothing to say.
My thinking is lumpy, my twinkle is grey, My meditive mantra’s an angst-laden bark – I chant it and chant all twice, anyway.
I rummage my brain for a straggler or stray, But the cupboard is bare and the tunnel is dark: I’ve nothing to say, again, nothing to say.
I have to do something, I can’t sit and pray ! I somehow must mallet my impotent mark: I hammer and hammer it twice, anyway !
But what can I do if the words will not play ? The page is still empty – the meaning is stark: I’ve nothing to say, again. Nothing to say. So shout it, and shout it out twice, anyway !
Liza Eliza, Daughter of a Kaiser – Plumper than cuter, And something of a miser. Asks her advisor To find her a suitor Who never will despise her For eating off of pewter.
Liza Eliza Master of disguiser – Spying on her diners, Incase they criticise her. Better to be wiser, For fear that they’ll malign her, Or else they might surprise her By eating off of china.
As a kid, I had a Bible, But I only read the bits I knew. Yet in the front, it listed all The endless books therein, and quite a few ! I read the titles, wondering, What ancient tales they must contain – Though most were called by random names, Which sounded boring, sounded vain.
But one stood out – The Book of Numbers ! Was it all divine geometry ?, Secret cyphers ?, Sacred fractals ?, Heaven’s holy trigonometry ? Did it declare why the speed of light Is the very speed it is ?, Or how the cosmos banged so bright ?, Or how the atoms whizz ?, Or how entangled is the quark ?, Or why is so much matter dark ?, Or are the anti-particles still His ?
I should have known – Nothing but a census, a way of keeping score. When asked for facts, the Lord has shown That nothing matters more than tax and war.
Not that taxes in themselves are a bad thing, as I’ve mused on here and here.
Gargoyles: always too damn small, A squander of a spitting spout – An impish whisper, not a shout. Apologies atop a wall, Embarrassed to be there at all, When always far too mono-grey, And always, always too damn far away. A shame, because their gothic clout That any stonechip ought to flout, Is blurred into a lump of flint. And yet, there’s so much hidden booty In their twisty, gnarly beauty, If we’re just prepared to climb or squint. But otherwise, these witty beasties – Masterpieces, have no doubt, A burst of sneer and snot and snout – Will never scare the nuns or priesties ! Make them bigger ! Carve them deeper ! Ev’ry goblin, troll and creeper, Give them gravitas and grout ! Let us see each gruesome grizzle, Else the mason works their chisel Long and hard for all of nowt, And all those wings and fangs and scales Are lost to time and frost and gales – But most of all, to apathetic drought. Don’t leave them overlooked, forgot, Or we shall lose the lonely lot, And long before their warts have weathered out.
Peanuts will not kill me, They just make me want to retch, And chestnuts cannot choke me But they sure can make me kvetch ! Coconuts are pussycats That scratch my taste-buds raw, And almonds leave me bitter, Should one sneak into my maw. Macadamies lack the proteins That could send me into shock. Cashew, beech and pecan – each As puny as a hollyhock. A pish upon pistachios, Your toxins well withstood – My shell is hard as hazelnuts, My kernel strong as wood ! No nuts will ever crack me, Be they pine, brazil or wall – My body couldn’t give a fig, My brain, though, hates them all !
I heard about it on the wires – From out the noise, a brand new spark That’s causing quite a buzz, it seems, With those who dare to cross the streams – The stars are not atomic fires, They claim, and matter isn’t dark ! Instead, across all empty space Electrostatic charges race…
The stars are merely filaments Amid a galaxy of bulbs, The cosmic pulse, at super-C, Will form electro-gravity. Now, many physicists resent This theory, and the place it holds – But then, how can they fail to see The holes in relativity ?
I heard the crackle in the air, And tuned my head and felt the spike – For all that maths and physics bore, I saw at once the metaphor ! The Universe and I must share In cells and galaxies alike Electrons – tiny, yet so large – So much potential in their charge !
Just in time for the first image of a black hole, I learned about a theory of space that denies their existence (also referred to as Plasma Cosmology). As I understand it, it basically posits that (though I’m sure I’m butchering this):
the reason no definitive evidence of black holes or dark matter exists is because they don’t actually exist,
that over 99% of matter in the universe is in a state of plasma, which readily conducts electricity,
that the lack of matter to hold the galaxies together is due to electricity itself amplifying gravity,
And that stars are not nuclear furnaces but more akin to the elements in lightbulbs, that is the places where the Universe’s electric fields ‘discharge’.
But like I say, I’m sure I’ve got that mostly wrong. And I make no claims to its accuracy. What attracted me to it was simply its poetic possibilities.
Rhyming Couplets 