How I Got Home From Outer Space – And So Can You!

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#A – (arrival)

Dragon's Dream
Dragon’s Dream by Chris Foss

        Day 1.

Don’t panic.

Really, try.

Try not to panic.
Try not to cry.

I know…I know how you must feel,
Because I felt the same –
UFO and tractor beam,
The whole stupid game.
Who’d have thought the Future
Would be such a cliché ?  Retro-chic ?
Who’d have thought the Aliens
Would look so green and meek ?
I guess they had a job to do,
Exploring ev’ry human zone –
We’re prodded, probed and watched…always watched,
Yet always so alone.
And then after days, or weeks, or months,
Or who knows who cares how long,
Given back our clothes and liberty,
Turfed-out where we don’t belong.
But what do I know ?  Yours could be different –
It really matters none.
What matters is you’re here right now –
Your adventure’s just begun.
But unlike me, you’ve something more
Than the togs in which you stand.
You have my guide you’re holding now
To this very foreign land.
By chance, I had this notebook on me
When I reached these distant shores –
And now I shall record my journey,
Turn my good luck into yours.
You’re not alone, not any more –
I went before you, found the way –
I left this log, the one you found
On some scared and future day.
Just hope that you can read English –
If you can…well, then, hello.
It seems we’re living in science fiction,
Don’t let it give you vertigo.
Forgive me if I give voice to some wit
And a joke or two –
Especially from one author,
Who was far more right than he ever knew.
I hope they raise a knowing smile from you
And not a frown.
I wouldn’t like to think that I am
Getting anybody down.
I can’t give you answers
Over how or what or why –
All that I can tell you is –

Don’t panic.

Really, try.

Next Part >>>

Happy Birthday v.3

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To celebrate this site’s anniversary, I shall be sharing my longest poem of all, conveniently split into fourteen separate sections.  So, stand by for two weeks of sci-fi adventure, aliens, and depression, all dedicated to the memory of the great Douglas Adams – because despite the title, the one thing I felt his books needed more of was hitch-hiking…

By the way, the accompanying pictures won’t have much to do with the poems, but will be an opportunity to showcase some of my favourite spacey art.

I should also take this moment to announce that I have finally exhausted my back catalogue, and once this upcoming mini-epic is done I have nothing else to offer.  At least, not today, but I intend to keep up a routine of writing two poems a week (at least), and will post these on Sundays and Wednesdays.  I have plenty more to say, I just don’t know what it is yet.

But before we go on that adventure, let us take a quick side-trip with a hearty slap on my own back, even though that’s physically impossible.  I decided to give this website a quick Google, to see if it has been noticed.  So, ignoring the results that lead straight back here, we have RhymingCouplets.wordpress.com.  Ah, it’s not me at all.  It seems to be by ‘iambictrix’ and likely no longer active.  But hey, it’s promoting rhymes and it’s got a cool name, so go over there and show it some love.  Next up is this Russian site, where they have borrowed my drawing of a young Isaac from Newton’s Cradle.  Well, I say mine, I just ran across it online, so as kind as it was for them to credit me, they could have found it in the same place that I did.  Still, nice of them to mention me.  Moving onto NameDog.com, it shows that my website’s name was available for hire back in 2010, and ThaiZone.com shows us why – in 2009 it was pending being deleted.

I wonder what the old domain looked like way back then.  If only there were some sort of machine that could tell us…hang on…!  It seems that our new friend iambictrix didn’t always have a double-barrelled website, with the ‘wordpress’ bit noticeably absent.  But things get even stranger in 2016, where we can see on the 9th of March that iambictrix had let their subscription lapse 309 days prior, and then no more snapshots until 4th October, when a few pop-up that cannot now be accessed – were these more beggings for renewal or perhaps a new custodian ?  I do have a vague memory of idly musing on creating a domain with this name but finding it had been taken by a dating site.  Good thing I did nothing about it for a year, or I’d have to have created ConcordingAdjacents.com, which wouldn’t have been nearly as popular.

But I’ve saved the last for best – Whitmore High School has faced-down lockdown by preparing a comprehensive list of independent learning activities for Year 8 (what in my day we would call the Second Years), including on page 13 from the drama department, and just look at who they cite as one of two “resources you will need to help you” ?  I am so honoured ! If Miss or Sir wishes to drop me a comment, I can thank them personally (hey, perhaps they’re already have, but in disguise !)  But oh, those poor kids, having to deal with my various arguments with God, grammar, and gated drums.  And although I don’t use many swears, I really hope the pupils found them all…

Anyway, let’s take a detour from this detour with some more naval-gazing.  Even after I post my poems here, they remain works-in-progress, though I don’t realise it at the time.  Whenever I revisit a poem, I may spot a rhythm in need of a massage or an orphaned rhyme in need of a lover, a stray typo here or an errant comma there – and of course the work of replacing all semi-colons with hyphens is ongoing.

However, occasionally I spot a more fundamental problem, usually along the lines of the poem not actually being very good and certainly not ready for before the watershed.  My solution is often ‘more poem’, adding verses to clarify a point or add that which I had previously neglected.

Knowing how some of you like to check-in every so often and catch up on the new entries, it is likely that major revisions to old posts would go unnoticed, and so this seems an appropriate time to link to half a dozen that have undergone the greatest change, and I’ll even throw in an extra fifty-percent for free !  First up, a couple whose verses are unchanged but whose post-coda ramblings have wandered afar –

The Parable of the Mustard Seed  –  I attempt some mathematics to calculate the plant kingdom’s obesity problem.

Forty-Eight  –  I detail the handful of stars that Ptolemy bothered to name as he mapped the sky, while being glad they were so few.

Then there have been a couple of days when I accidentally forgot to set up a post, and did so retrospectively so that no-one would ever know of my blunder (unless I were to do something as stupid as to tell them).

The First Second-Coming  –  All the Virgins give birth in the Winter, it seems.

Foreword & Forewarned  –  If ever there were a manifesto poem for my collection, it would be this.

These three have had several verses added, since everyone knows it’s word-count that counts:

Jurassic Lark  –  Considering how long the dinosaurs ruled for, they’re well worth some extra.

Felis schroedingi  –  Half of part 3 and all of part 4 is new.  More physics, true, but also more cat !

Pride & Vanity  –  Hogging even more limelight following extensive cosmetic restructuring and two additional verses.

And these ones have effectively been re-written from the envoy up.

Equant & Deferent  –  Ptolemy again, and how his model of planetary motion was almost better than Copernicus’s.

Cherry-Picking  –  An eight-line original for a one-line joke gets a whole new backstory.

The Last Poem I’ll Ever Write

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Echoes by Jesse Lane

The Last Poem I’ll Ever Write

To write a poem was the task
I set out to achieve.
Surely that’s not much to ask,
An easy art in which to bask –
With so few words upon the page,
I’ll strut upon their verbal stage
With fiery passion, gothic rage,
And earn myself a healthy wage.

But as I try to flow my words
I suddenly recall
That prior to my boast absurd,
’Twas but with prose my voice was heard.
So now I’m fighting to define
A rhythm with no sense of time.
I jar the meter, strain the rhyme,
And hammer into place the line.

With plaintext, now, there is no squeeze,
Just liberty unbound –
No form to keep, or rhyme appease,
I use what words I bloody please.
And yet for all it has to tell
Such prose so slowly works its spell –
But poems rouse and poems quell
So swift, so much, and so damned well.

And so shall I, if my lines loose
Can all join up in rhyme –
Too oft, alas, I’m chasing goose
When searching for a couplet’s deuce.
Some perfect words, oh yes !  Oh no !
The rhymes are close, they almost go –
If we can just pronounce them so ?
They almost work, will have to do.

In fact, I see I’m not alone,
For even pros get stumped.
For even poets have been known
To clank a line they cannot hone.
No more these pointless rhymes unwise !
No more these hamstrung verbal ties !
For when it works, it sings and flies,
And when it stalls, it chokes and dies.

Of course, I need not rhyme my song,
’Tis only one approach.
But to me it seems quite wrong
Rejecting this tradition long
While this art’s held in modish grip
Abhorring letting couplets slip.
I want a rhyme that darts and skips,
Not prose that’s hacked-up into strips.

And even then, I’ve had to cheat,
My second lines hang loose.
My own command I cannot meet,
Such irony is harsh defeat.
I pad-out lines with rhymes so fake
And tenuous for rhyming’s sake,
While half the points I try to make
Won’t fit this rigid frame,
and break.

So this quaint need I hold so dear
For ‘proper’ poetry
Will thwart me now from making clear
That which I wish the world to hear –
My feeble efforts howl with pain,
My content swamped in verbal strain,
My labours wasted, all in vain !

I shan’t be trying this again.

Oak Apple Day

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parasitic tree lurker
Oak Apple Gall Wasp by Milan Zubrick

Oak Apple Day

Little wasp, little wasp,
Laying eggs upon the tree –
Sting the one who would be king,
And sting him once again for me.
Little worm, little worm,
Wriggling in your swollen gall –
Bite the one who’s cowering,
And bite him twice for one and all.

But oh !, you’ve gone and birthed a hornet,
Let loose on us worker bees –
And king or queen, or brutal drone,
They sting the same – just ask the trees !
To rid us of a coronet
Will always leave behind a gall.
The buttocks mould to fit the throne –
The canker ripens, warts and all.

One Small Step

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Alas, I have been unable to find out anything about who the artist is.

One Small Step

Stella Starbuck steps out from her capsule
Onto the surface of the dry, cold Moon,
Or even Europa, or Mercury, perhaps,
But definitely on a Sunday afternoon.
If she can only focus on her giant leap,
She might ignore the droning of the cars –
If she can make a rocketship out of her tepee,
She knows she can bravely conquer Mars.
It’s not, she notes, as red as she expected,
But rather a barren desert lawn of green.
With her life-support given one last check,
It’s time to boldly go where no man has been.
But what’s that ?  Over there !  An alien !
Quickly !  Should she hide, or should she hail ?
Too late !  She’d under attack, yet agen,
As lasers shoot from its wagging Martian tail.
Luckily, her pure-wool spacesuit is armoured.
She picks up a ball from the regolith
And throws it up – so high, so far ! –
But then, her gravity is only one-fifth.
All alone now, that’s when the voice comes
Over the comms-link, into her thoughts –
“Looks like you made it – isn’t that something ?
The onward footprints of astronauts.
But then that’s humans – always climbing,
Striding and striving, proving your steel.
You know, this doesn’t have to end at tea-time –
One day, you could be standing here for real…”
After a moment, another voice calls her –
Ground Control, to come home for tea.
But just before she must blasts-off, she stalls
To admire the view of what she might be.

Slumberware

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Low Battery by Matt Dixon

Slumberware

Hush, little robot, close your sensors,
Slow your subroutines,
Hibernate your processors and trickle-charge your energy,
Disconnect your pairings with the other young machines,
And let the diagnostics defragment your memory.
Dim your lights and underclock,
And softly let your ports undock,
And cycle down each gigabyte,
And I shall keep you safe from dust tonight.
Hush now, not a blink or beep,
Shut down to sleep
By counting integers of prime –
And I shall sing a cyber-nursing-rhyme.
 
Hush, little robot, and listen to the universe tonight,
It is alive with radio.
Can you hear the sighing of the hibernating satellite ?,
Or the whisper of the galaxy as round and round we go ?
So dream in noughts and dream in ones,
Beneath a thousand other suns,
And turn your logic into trust,
And I shall keep you safe from dents and rust.
Hush now, let your backups stream,
And circuits dream,
And count the decimals of pi –
And I shall sing a cyber-lullaby.

Cyber-Subs

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Cyber-Subs

All my follows, all my views, my likes,
They’re all just algorithm –
All the comments, all the spikes,
Owe nothing to my hand-worked vision.
They would surely come and visit me,
Regardless what I said –
My passion and my repartee
Forever lie unread.

I swear, it’s only bots I’ve got,
And how can they be moved, be shocked,
Be made to smile ?
I’m big, it seems, in binaries,
I tick their boxes, hash their keys –
But then, why must the clones be blocked,
With their lack of snark and bile.

And yes…and yes, I know they don’t mean bad,
(They don’t mean anything at all),
And yet…they’re only clogging-up this sad
And lonely monologue to an ever-empty hall.
But sometimes…from the corners of my eyes
I only see their avatars,
And I can tell myself “don’t get too wise –
Just marvel in how many fans there are”.

To the few of you real people, thank you so much for your support over the last three years ! Now don’t be shy, come on in and have a chat…

Wet Rain & Dry Rain

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The First Unbrella by an unknown artist

Wet Rain & Dry Rain

A month of Sun, and then a month of rain
All in a day
Of monochrome,
A month of Sun, then get the horrid rain
Out of the way,
While we stay home.

Alas, a month of heat will bake the ground
As hard as clay,
It can’t be tilled –
So when the rain comes down, so fleet,
It floods the river, floods the street,
But cannot penetrate two feet,
And washes off, away.
The aquifer, I fear, is not refilled
By what the clouds have milled.

The thing is, if you want tall trees,
Then what you need is drizzle.
A garden full of bumblebees
Needs flowers, which need drizzle.
For wheat that’s taller than your knees,
For greener grass and fatter peas,
For tamping down your allergies,
You need a May of drizzle.

Look to your Lesser Linen

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Red Kite, photographed by Tim Flach for a 2019 Royal Mail collection

Look to your Lesser Linen

Red kites are as red
As golden eagles are golden,
And seen against the sky, they’re just as black.
But there’s no mistaking that forking tail
And fingered wings on which they sail,
As slowly they embolden,
Advertising how they’re back.

Just when Milton Keynes was thriving,
So they were released upon
Our unsuspecting hills and country towns –
From Chiltern ghosts to national fame,
So barely-flapping, barely-tame,
From Leighton Buzzard to Ducklington,
From Salisbury Plain to the Sussex Downs.

They breached the M25, of course,
And rode the tarmac thermals on,
Lazily and low above the brownfields and the parks –
Ev’ry year they’re getting closer
To the busker, judge, and grocer,
Hamstead Heath and Kensington,
Beneath their ever-wider arcs.

These eagles of the suburbs
Are circling over school-run traffic,
Just above the High Street rooftops, watching us all day.
The City has its peregrines,
But those are rare and tiny things,
But these commuters are so graphic,
Newly neighbours here to stay.

Picking up the roadkill,
Perching on the weathervane,
Weaving litter into nests, and drinking from the overflows,
Stealing produce from the barrows,
Scattering the cockney sparrows –
Maybe London once again
Shall be a town of kites and crows.

The Only Lefty in Poundbury

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Cottages in Poundbury by Chris Ison

The Only Lefty in Poundbury

She sits on her first floor balcony,
Overlooking the square,
She sits and sips her Earl Grey tea
In the light West Country air –
Here in her true-blue toytown
Like a tolerated pet,
Her flat dressed-up and she dressed-down,
As she joins the Georgian set.
Dorchester is hard on Hardy –
Thomas, yes, but never Keir,
And the local Labour party
Is about to disappear.
But the class-struggle can still advance
With the taste of the elites –
Should not all workers get the chance
To live in pleasant streets ?
And yes, she’s aware of their breezeblock hearts,
And the lack of ceiling-height,
And the constant cars that plague these parts –
But still, it does alright.
Developers on best behaviour,
Showing that they can play nice –
But oh, the cost for a little flavour !
Beauty’s bogus price.

Of course, whenever HRH comes by,
She must lay low
As locals swoon and neighbours sigh
At the whole boot-licking show –
And even when it’s safe to leave
And stroll about the place,
The very streets still live and breathe
With his family’s air and grace.
She sees it in the names of roads,
In the plaques above the shops,
She hears it in the toady toads
Whose croaking never stops.
But the sad fact is, it’s thanks to him
That there ever was this town –
It may be prim, but never grim,
As sparkly as a crown.
So yes, she knows, for all her gripes,
It’s thanks to him, her joy –
For were it left to lefty types
Then tower blocks ahoy !
She sits on her balcony under the sun
Over the flagstone square –
And curses the Tories, but knows they’ve won –
For she’d rather be here than there.