Richard Feynman giving a lecture on the motion of planets around the Sun
Star-Glazing
(After Walt Whitman)
When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer, When the proofs and figures were ranged In columns before me, to add and measure, When shown his charts and diagrams strange, When I, sitting, heard the Astronomer, Where he lectured with much applause, How soon, tired and sick, I stirred And wander’d off by myself outdoors. There in mystical moist night-airs, From time to time I look’d up clear In perfect silence at the stars, (And thought them small, and rather near.)
This is my take on Walt Whitman’s poem of the opening line. I’ve shuffled things around and made it rhyme, but most of it is his words except for the last line. Turns out he was just a luddite after all.
“All praise to Buddha ! God-son of Maya, Born unto a Virgin, On the twenty-fifth December. Heralding his coming Was a brightly shining star, Gifts betrothed by Wise Men, Songs by Angel-Choir.
Teaching in the Temple, Twelve and on his todd, Then baptised in the presence Of the Spirit of the God. Tempted hard by Mara, Tempted while he fasted. Feeder of five-hundred From a small cake-basket.”
Or so I’ve heard it said by a suspicious few Who desperately, desperately, want it to be true. Are deities amalgams, at least in the telling ? I can well believe it, but not the kind they’re selling. But then, what do I really know about such secret lore ? Perhaps you ought to tell me more…
“Healer of the sickened, Walker on the water, Renouncer of the World, And poverty supporter. A Kingdom of Righteousness He built and oversaw – Then came he down unto us To fulfil the written Law.
Died upon a cross, The rumour-mill endorses. Sealed up in a tomb Which rent by magic forces. Rose up from the dead, Ascended to Nirvana – Promised to return For Judgement on our karma.”
Or so I’ve heard it said by the endless games Who never cite their sources and never check their claims. Are deities amalgams, or cliches, or hopes ?, With ev’ryone drawing on the same common tropes ? I guess that the gods are our latent thoughts aloud And the prayers go to the ones who please the crowd.
I read all the facts for this poem on a website a long time ago, and have never got round to verifying them, so this version of Buddha might be total bollocks – but then, all versions of Buddha are total bollocks.
Edit – I’ve decided not to check (well, more like finally admitted that I couldn’t be bothered to check) into what I strongly suspect is complete BS – so instead I’ve added the third and sixth verses.
Life, it seems, is ev’rywhere, An opportunist spiv: And ev’ry nettle, ev’ry rat, And ev’ry spider, ev’ry gnat, And ev’ry roach and snake and bat, Is one more proof of nature’s flair Through evolution’s sieve. So love each thriving organism: Dandelion, botulism, Dry-rot, fly-bot, feral pigeon; Life, it seems, is ev’rywhere, It cannot help but live.
First there was sunlight and bedrock and ocean, And acids amino, all churned in a dance – When somethings were randomly formed in that potion Of nutrient flow in a soupy expanse. They hadn’t a thought or a want or a notion, They hadn’t the know that they’d barely a chance; They had no creator to watch with devotion, So where could they go, and just how to advance ? But networks were working and systems in motion Which favour and grow and compete and enhance – And so, life is life – a fluky explosion, A spawny crescendo to blind happenstance.
Yes, I know I put an extra ‘e’ in the title of the picture above, but now it’s so much easier to say ! Interestingly, I’m not the only one, though there is some debate over which letter should represent that extra schwa:
Animalacule (both singular and plural) yields 1 screen (at twenty returns per screen) Animalecule produces 3 screens – this one is my favourite, as it could mean “animated molecule” Animalicule turns up six screens Animalocule generates just 9 entries in total Animalucule scores a measly 8 hits Animalycule strikes out completely – though that’s before this page goes live, of course, which will increase the result to one.
detail from Woman Writing a Letter by Gerard ter Borch
Epistophile
Her lovers’ ink, the sneerful think, Is sentimental brine – But no, I say, for each cliché Is lyricment divine ! The very fact her tritesome pact Is heaped upon my shrine Is surely worth all laboured birth – Her rapturelust is mine ! Her spotted graft becomes a draught Of witticismic wine – Her passion grows in purple prose, To bloom incarnadine.
(After Molière, The Learnèd Ladies, Act 3, Scene 3)
Another world has passed us by Just as we were sleeping, And fallen through our vortex as we lie – A happenstance unseen across our sky. For all the while the linens we were keeping, A momentary spark can live and die.
Nineveh and Babylon have crumbled into dust, Carthage, Ur and Jericho are pillars in the sand; Once they were such glories, true – bustling and august – But now reduced to legends and faint markings on the land. London, though, is still alive, still growing and unplanned, Not like dead Persepolis, where only mem’ry roams. Ephesus and Ashkelon are sinking, gust by gust. Luxor, Thebes and Memphis, now preserved in ancient tomes, Sumer, Sardis, Akkad and Knossos are unmanned. London, though, is standing yet, and just as grim and grand. Middle-aged, with stuccoed bays and stock-brick-golden domes; Humble tracks now avenues, from Oxford Street to Strand, Yet keeps forever youthful as it builds and fells its homes. Many structures barely make a century’s employ, Ere yet another edifice is raised upon its bones; And so King’s Cross and Bishopsgate, and Knightsbridge and Savoy Have thus by slow rebuilding changed their slates and paving-stones. Once an early city stood, whose name we still enjoy, But now that ancient London’s quite as lost as Kish and Troy.
They came at first in ones or twos: Unseasonal, yet harmless. And with a swipe of printed news, I turned those lively flies to flews – A dextrous-forearm mess.
I turned those bottled-blueboys black, A stain upon the masthead group – An asterisk to heavy flack, An apt critique on pap and hack, This headline now a scoop.
But long before I’d reached the sport, I heard some buzzing overhead – And looking up, I must report, A dozen more of equal sort – The paper’s filth had spread !
With tabloid reciprocity And breaking news of utter trash, With gutterpress ferocity I blazed each fresh atrocity Upon my front-page splash.
The old man lay in bed and watched His body eaten to decay. How strong he’d been in his old day, How weak he was today, how scotched. How great his all-too-mortal fear, How much he’d give for one more year – He’d even sell his soul to get To keep it in his body yet – For even thought the end was near, He longed to ante-up for one last bet.
“Indeed ?” a voice replied at large In answer to his silent thought. “Perhaps the bargain you have sought Can be arranged, and free of charge. Yet not a miracle, alas, But biologic working-class – To give your soul an unfair bite, I bring a little hope tonight – For while it’s true all thing must pass, It passes slower for those souls who fight !”
detail from The Moneylender & His Wife by Quentin Metsys
Caveat Emptor
You need saving, I think, you need saving – I don’t know from what, but you need it, and I got it. I choose to lease myself as investment in your craving, (Though nothing gets refunded, as your credit-rating’s rotted.) You think I look expensive, and you think you can’t afford it – When your faith is unsecured, and your int’rest rate obsessed. With all emotions overdrawn, your hope is due an audit – Now you’re out of guarantee and about to be possessed.
Expensive ? Me ? Most surely yes, And very very dear – I will cost you ev’ry single thing, and nothing less – I will cost you all you know, and all that you express – Your ev’ry laugh and ev’ry scream, Your ev’ry try and ev’ry guess, And I will cost your ev’ry lie, and ev’ry truth sincere. Your ev’ry insecurity and neurologic mess – They all belong to me, you hear ? Mine is your perdition, absolution and confess, Mine the power to repress, Mine the power to redeem. I shall be your angel engineer, To grease your thread and mesh your gear, And shine your rusting soul with my caress.
You need saving, I think, you need saving – God knows as from what – you don’t know it, but you’ll get it. I choose to bond myself upon the markets that you’re braving, Expose my soul to risk until we’re equally indebted. You think I look expensive as I gilt your fraying edges, But you’ll enter into contract on my exponential sureties. My platinum promissory shall underwrite your pledges As you finally take stock of all your life-assured securities.
Dizzying ? Me ? Forever yes, And very very sheer – I shall cost you ev’ry single thing that you possess I shall cost your ev’ry hope, and watch them coalesce. Your presentide is mine to gleam Your morrowment is mine to bless And though I know this terrifies, I’ll help you persevere. For mine shall be your ev’ry waking thought and sleeping dream, Mine your ev’ry failing scheme, Mine your ev’ry sweet success. Guilt and joy and lust and fear – They cost far more than money mere, And these are how you pay for me – by bushel, peck and ream. And then, what is more, I press My darling with an added stress – For not just shall you suffer this to give your love supreme. But see, you must attend my tear – For like you, I too revere – So now you must accept the very same from my extreme. Give my passions safe address, For we are quartz, my love, and we are steam.
I intended this to be a metaporical contract near the start of a relationship where one side is saying that they will monopolise all of the other’s attension, but when shown to friends they saw it differently – one thought that it was some pretty hardball divorse negotiations, while another saw the narrator was money itself. Hey, if these work for you, have at it.
Rhyming Couplets 