Ascii 112
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.
Writers’ Block, Writers’ Block
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 !
Fiffle-Faff
Liza Eliza,
Daughter of a Kaiser –
Plumper than cuter,
Never was a miser.
Asks her advisor
To find her a suitor
Who won’t despise her
For eating off of pewter.
Liza Eliza
Master of disguiser –
Spying on her diners,
When they criticise her.
Better to be wiser,
Should they malign her,
Or they might surprise her
By eating off of china.
The Book of Numbers
As a kid, I had a Bible,
But I only read the bits I knew.
Yet in the front, it listed all
The 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.
Guttersprites
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.
Psycho-Allergy
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 !
The Electric Universe
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 in 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 field ‘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.
