Capital Notion
They’re funny things, these Proper Nouns,
They’re Folks and Brands and Months and Towns,
And once achieved, each Noun then gives
Us just-as-Proper Adjectives.
Capital Notion
The History of an Industrial Revolution, Located in a Parallel Universe
The History of an Industrial Revolution, Located in a Parallel Universe
There was a time before the steam,
The world was truly manned –
Each ditch was dug and plough was drug
By animal or hand –
And all the light to see by came
From tallow or the sun.
So lives would trudge on just the same,
Each short and brutal run.
There was a time before the steam,
The only help was wind or stream –
So up we moved to brook or hill,
Forever lashed to nature’s will –
We’d tap the earth to drive our mill.
A little better, maybe – but we’d only just begun.
There was a time before the steam,
The world was short and slow.
Our only fuel was ox or mule,
Or when the wind might blow.
And all the warmth in winter came
From hearths of wood or peat,
With forests lost to make a flame
And give a little heat.
There was a time before the steam,
Before the pitch-black golden seam,
When all the energy not hooved
Could not be bottled, bred or moved.
Our lives could only be improved
By pilgrimage to power on our thousand weary feet.
There was a time before the steam,
The world was harshly ranged –
The days were long, yet swiftly gone,
And nothing ever changed.
But then came coal – the good earth’s soul,
The black and frozen fire –
And finally we took control,
And built our chimneys higher.
There was a time before the steam,
But that was then – before the gleam
Of pistons, valves and proud machines
Whose vapour-thrust provides the means
For endless and precise routines –
To serve our ev’ry labour and to never miss or tire.
There was a time before the steam,
To which we dread return –
But once the coke is up in smoke,
Well, what then will we burn ?
We’ve still got wind and rivers, sure,
But only local clout –
And charcoal gobbles trees the more,
Till none are left to sprout.
To where there’s folk about.
Will there be times beyond the steam,
A flywheel to prolong the dream ?
If only we can tame the spark –
The lightning bolt, the static arc –
And store it, then release its bark !
Or else we face an Age of Dark, when all the lights go out.
The Voyage of the Novum Organum
The Voyage of the Novum Organum
’Twas in the summer of ’20
When our galleon set sale.
Now gather ye, and plenty,
As I lay the fearless tale:
We soon approached the pillars bold
That Hercules himself, we’re told,
Had planted, so’s to say “Behold !
Behold these sights, and quail !
Here lies the End of the Earth, my friends,
And who knows what may lie beyond ?
It’s time to find what you’re worth, my friends,
If dareꞌst ye leave your pond.
Will you view my gates as a warning ?
Then head for home on the turning tide.
Or will you view my gates as a dawning ?
Then pass on through to the other side !”
Who knows if God shall forsake us ?
Who knows where the currents take us ?
Over the seas on our questing quest:
With our fortunes pressed for the holy grail,
As on and on we sail.
So wise old Captain Bacon
Gave the word to pass on through.
We prayed he weren’t mistaken
And a-gambling with his crew.
We sailed betwixt those ancient piers,
And set a course for new frontiers.
Once Argonauts, now pioneers !
’Twas time to earn our due.
“There lies the Start of the Earth, my friends,
When we find out what lies ahead !
It’s time to give rebirth, my friends,
It’s time to raise the dead !”
We knew great riches would await us,
All our maps were full of exes !
We dug up booty with apparatus,
And unearthed keys to fresh complexes.
Follow the clues, be smart and plucky –
Here be dragons, if we’re lucky !
Over the seas on our questing quest:
The better we guessed, the more we unveiled,
As on and on we sailed.
We plumbed that deep wide ocean
So’s to chart her reefs and bars
The first we found was motion –
It was written in the stars !
Then spied we microscopic forms –
A hidden world of tiny swarms.
We shuddered, but we rode such storms,
And better for the scars.
There lies so much joy on this Earth, my friends –
Let’s find out what we share her with !
There’s nowhere upon her in dearth, my friends –
She’s always more to give !
We sailed upon her seas of numbers,
Fathomed her amounts amounting:
Formulas and patterns slumbered –
Ev’rything, we learned, was counting.
And the point where the limit of our learning meets,
There’s always a fair wind filling our sheets.
Over the seas on our questing quest:
The more we professed, the more we regaled,
As on and on we sailed.
The further out our striving,
So the better stocked our stores.
And always we’re arriving
Onto ever-stranger shores.
And on those lands we took our drills
And tapped the streams and dug the hills
And set down bridges, rails and mills,
And just and noble laws.
We learned how the whole of the Earth, my friends,
Is built from the same few blocks, not more !
We learned how the life round her girth, my friends,
Is built from life before !
We sailed away to explore and learn,
And still there is so much more to find !
We know we can never again return
To that ancient world that we left behind.
We’ll never be bored and we’ll never be done –
We’ll never arrive at the setting sun.
Over the seas on our questing quest:
The more we progress, the higher we scale,
As on and on we sail.
The Problem with Trolleys
The Problem with Trolleys
Help ! A tramcar hollers and wails !
Careering for workers, three, four, five.
A runaway tram is running the rails –
How will the navvies survive ?
But wait ! A set of points are looming –
Switch the switches, stop the dooming
Of the tappers, unassuming,
Unaware they’re barely alive !
But no ! The branch line also bears
A clueless worker – just the one,
Who hasn’t seen the tram that tears,
All twenty-seven ton.
And there are we, beside the junction,
Knowing points and how they function –
Can we act without compunction,
Should we do what should be done ?
And where has Health & Safety gone,
With workers present on the track ?
There’s something fishy going on,
If no-one’s got their back.
The dead man’s handle’s truly dead,
The brakes un-tripped, the lights un-red.
Reality, it seems, has fled –
Ah well, let’s give their quiz a crack…
They say a tram is loose and live,
So should we pull that fatal lever ?
Should we kill the one…or five ?
It’s easy – we kill neither !
Cut the power, wave our arms !,
And shout a warning, raise alarms !,
To keep all workers safe from harm –
Then no-one needs to be a griever.
Make the shrinks despise and fear us,
Scoffing their contrived disaster –
If they claim the men won’t hear us,
We shout louder !, we run faster !
Who cares for the rules they set ?
We’ve got our own, and better yet.
So will we stop the tram ? No sweat !
For common sense shall be our master.
Makeworking
Makeworking
There isn’t enough to do today,
There isn’t enough to do.
It isn’t as though I enjoy what I do,
The tiresome woe they employ me to do –
But wouldn’t you know, but my tedium grew
As soon as work withered away.
I’ve finished the paper, the internet’s gone,
I have to pretend that I’ve got something on,
I’m barely awake and I’m boozy-lunch tight,
I’m sharpening pencils with nothing to write.
Eyebrow Stroking
Eyebrow Stroking
At school, they taught us poetry,
And how to read them, and just what they meant,
And we recited dutif’ly –
And still I think they barely left a dent.
Strange, they never taught us songs,
But we still understood them well enough –
Their loves, their hopes, their rights and wrongs –
Cheesy, sure – but boy, they were the stuff !
Poems once were fun and catchy,
Now they’re Worthy, now they’re Art.
My mem’ry of their lines is patchy,
Yet I know a thousand songs by heart.
At school they taught us poetry,
On long and stuffy afternoons –
But we learned far more humanity
From crappy lyrics sung to catchy tunes.
Midnight Glorious
Midnight Glorious
An angel came into my room
One night, and hovered by my bed,
With subtle beats of golden wings,
And gentle light about his head.
And while my shock about my guest
Continued, so he spoke to me:
“Why, pray, shall you so hate God
When all He shows is love for thee ?”
“The Lord…?” I stammered once or twice,
Then found some voice from who knows where
To make reply “I hate him not,
The truth is that I do not care.”
“Now come,” the angel mocked with jest,
“For all your claims of disbelief,
Why would you spend so much strong speech
On what should matter slight and brief ?
If you upon such proof insist
As only science can provide,
Then, please, we wish you go in peace,
And as you go, let us abide.”
And as his light began to fade
And too his form began to fly,
I softly said, perhaps too late:
“So I shall you. Shall you so I ?”
Concerto for Air Guitar
Concerto for Air Guitar
Here comes the good bit, so as we rehearsed:
Now form-up the stance and keep that head bowed
With your instrument horizontal at first,
And once or twice peek through your hair at the crowd.
Now throw your head back as you work with that plec,
Then lean to your right as you let your left rise –
Now slide it on down that invisible neck,
Saluting your fans as you open your eyes.
Hundredfoots
Hundredfoots
Centipedes, ah centipedes, with more legs than blood veins,
Not like the millipedes – they’re rounder, you’re flatter.
Among the weeds are centipedes, articulated trains –
So how can you walk without causing a clatter ?
You gain two more segments each time that you shed –
That’s four legs per moulting, with more moults ahead.
So I don’t know, centipedes, quite how you succeed
When the insects can make do with six feet per tread.
Is it to lengthen your gut, or to strengthen
Your grasp on the earth, causing limbs to accrue ?
And if so, you sly lot, I’m wondering why not
Have billipedes, or trillipedes, or squillipedes too ?
Nat’ral selection, of course, has you firm in her grip –
It’s legs verses food, and at some point your fortunes must slip –
Though how many legs does it take for the balance to tip ?
Centipedes, ah plentipedes, with more legs than brains,
Though more brains than millipedes, if far fewer pins –
Bullet-headed batter-rams who plough through remains,
They’re moving slow by gearing low, to help sync their shins.
Silly slow millipedes, high in torque and low in speed –
Faster though than rotting leaves, upon which they feed.
You race them and beat them, you chase them and eat them –
But how many, Centipede, of legs do you ready need ?
Perhaps it’s your body that’s less planned than shoddy,
And just goes on growing till one day you pop.
You keep budding segments and each comes with legments,
All far too far back-there behind you to stop.
Centipedes, ah centipedes, you’re runners and dancers,
You’re bolted together, you’re slaloming chancers –
So rich in appendages, always – but so poor in answers.
Just-So Grammar
Just-So Grammar
If you ever stumble on pronouncing a tricky word,
Or if you’ve often seen it written, but it’s one you’ve never heard,
Or if you find this language arbitrarily absurd,
Well, that’s because it really rather is.
The thing about this English, and the reason why it’s so,
Is just to show who’s truly in the know, oh doncha know,
And that’s why there’s still esses in debris and apropos,
It’s often less a language, more a quiz.
The spellings show the origin – the past, not present tense.
And even if the origin is wrong, that’s no defence –
For if we change the spelling, they will hate our common sense –
We’re punished with the snigger and the snub.
Well, pedants gotta pedant, and scolds gotta scold,
They make up all the rules, and the rules they then withhold,
And if we have to ask them, well, it’s too late to be told –
They’ll never let us join their little club.
Rhyming Couplets 