Another eclipse I’ve missed, I’ve missed, Just like the others that passed me by – Ev’ry couple of years there’s one In Vladivostok or Uruguay – But they never shine round here these days, They never shine round here…
I s’pose I could go chase them, chase them, To the Hindu Cush or the Cape But all that cost, and what if it’s cloudy ?, For two-odd minutes of tickertape… And they damn don’t dance round here these days, They damn don’t dance round here…
Stand in a spot a long time, long time, Eventu’ly, an eclipse will call – But nothing can ever be worth such wait, In longer than empires rise and fall. And they won’t rise soon round here these days, They won’t rise soon round here.
Another eclipse I’ve missed, I’ve missed, And maybe I’ll miss them ev’ry one – But life goes on regardless if The Moon may cross before the Sun And the Sun still shines round here these days, The Sun still shines round here.
All these Christmas cards, each year, These Christmas cards of pristine snow, With country squires and village geese, And not a trace of elbow-grease, With ev’ry lady all a-cheer, And ev’ry urchin all a-glow, And all the cosy world at peace, Forever after, never cease… Except, it never is – not here – It never was, of course, we know – But hey, let fantasy increase Upon a harmless mantlepiece.
Model of Dunkleosteus terrelli, photographed by James St. John. I have been unable to uncover who made the model.
Sleeping with the Armoured Fishes
Ah lads, I love me a lonely building site, But best be down to business – bring the rat. It really is a calm if moonless night And I’m in quite the mood to have a chat. Yes, bring him here, and keep him gagged and bound. So, let’s have a look at you – nothing to say ? Ironic, given how you like to expound – But then, I’m not the cops, and I don’t pay. So pray, indulge me with a heart-to-heart. You’re what, mid-twenties ? Younger than I thought. Are you a college boy ? You think you’re smart ? But not so brainy now that you’ve been caught. Same age as my boy, infact, and just as raw. When he went off to uni, I said “Son, I don’t want you to study business or the law, Don’t want you to follow in my footsteps none. Go and find yourself in girls and books And study something useless, something fun.” “Alright dad,” he said, “goodbye to crooks, And here’s to looking after number one. And I know just the course for me – It’s palaeontology ! Digging up the bones like any average Jones.”
So off he went to college with his hammer Seeking out the placoderm and ammonite, To live that student life in all its glamour – Pasta, parties, politics and cram-all-night. And now he even works for a museum, Cataloguing shells and dating rocks – He calls the place a fossil mausoleum, Worshipping the dead, then seal them in a box. But then one day, he’s telling me how rare A fossil even is to ever find When so much of the past ain’t even there, We’re lucky that there’s any left behind. And if we died, wiped out, in plague or war – Well, when the dolphins rises, or super-ants, In sixty-five-odd million years or more, How would they know that we were smarty-pants ? Now I know what you’re thinking of, young man, Cos so was I, I thought I’d name that tune – So don’t interrupt, (not that you can) – But so I says “There’s footprints on the Moon !” “Perhaps” he says, “but even these Face meteorites and solar breeze, And the Voyagers ? Okay, but so very far away.”
Steel structures ? Not a chance, he said – Rusted, melted, eaten, and the trail is cold. The same with plastic, silicon, or lead – The only stable currency is gold. But not out here, where wind and rain can bite, And bring the highest mountains down to sand – But locked up in the Earth, well out of sight, With pottery and diamonds shaped by hand. And as for bones, we do ourselves no favours, By burying just six-feet deep in loam, And never mind cremation ! But our saviours Are those who drowned a mile beneath the foam – Sunk in shifting silt with little oxygen, ahoy ! Or in summat tough and clearly fake and littered by the score – And here’s where we finally come to you, old boy – It’s concrete ! Especially with rebar through its core. And when it’s in the pilings of a bridge, Then it’s already buried, safe as houses ! Okay lads, over here a smidge…and down he goes… A rat, I suppose, to join the future mighty mouses. I hope he makes it big some day – How fitting for his feet of clay To join a concrete shroud – my son would be so proud !
Most reinforced concrete structures begin crumbling after just a few decades due to the steel rebar rusting inside the slabs. Presumably this building site is using newer carbon fibre bars to ensure it can outlast the mountains.
There’s a thousand kinds of comedy, Gethin, But you, son, you are doing none of them. There’s punchlines, shocklines, Character and cringe lines, But you, Gethin, you ain’t got a-one of them.
Shouting at the audience is not being edgy, It’s just being lazy, when you don’t have a joke. The Guardian may love you, But the punters shrug and yawn – Cos you, Gethin, you just ain’t a very funny bloke.
Unless I’m missing something, you’re not even trying, It isn’t that your gags are falling flat – You’re miming and ranting, And smirking up your sleeve, But Gethin, you’ll have to try damn harder than all that !
Yet who the hell am I to tell what’s funny ? But I don’t get it, and I won’t come back I hope you’ll find an audience, But Gethin, don’t forget – It’s fine to make ’em think, but you’ve gotta make ’em crack…
Heads up, jaws set, eyes fixed – here we go ! Once more unto the tinsel and mistletoe, Haul out the fairy lights, string up the streamers, Censor the cynics and pander the dreamers: For here comes December ! And there goes the quiet: The balancing budget and sensible diet – Instead, we get suet and Dickens by snow – But brace up and take it, cos here we all go !
Little fish, little fish, Current-tossed fry, Ninety-nine percent of your sibling-fish will die. Eaten up, swallowed up, Too small to run – Ninety-nine percent – but you, will you be one ? Little fish, little fish, Dead before your teens. Is it down to luck, or is it down to genes ? Eaten up, swallowed up, Labouring in vain – A few of you will make it, to start it all again.
Fish are r-selectors, They spew their eggs upon the deep. On the current, on the hope That a few of them will seep their way to adulthood, Playing the odds and making good.
A few, though, are protectors – Mouth-brooders, seahorses, Their eggs in an extra envelope. But once they’re born, of course, they’re on their own – Even in a shoal, they swim alone.
But sharks are k-selectors, Giving birth to one or two – Yet then they leave their pups to cope. So fish are absent parents, true, but don’t condemn – I guess the numbers show it works for them.
Gert yer lovely tumuluses, Wattled daubs and timber trusses – These will last for ages, stone or bronze. Gert yer long-house, gert yer round, An’ gert yer sacrificial mound, An’ mint concentric rings without the cons. I’ve swanky sarsens, blingin’ blues, I’ve sterlin’ job-lot Sutton Hoos, I’ve hoards of axe-heads – copper, flint or chert. I’m good for grave-goods, beads and torcs – So find me where the old roads forks Fer tons of rolling earthworks, cheap as dirt.
Last year I bought a flaming Katy To mark a change from mistletoe – As red as holly, green as ivy, As pretty as any on show. With buds like baubles till they burst, For long after the thirty-first.
This year I still have that Katy – Bulletproof, she just goes on, Though all the year her stem has bolted, And her blooms are long long gone, She’s clearly no perpetual rose, But then, that’s just the way she grows.
She was so pretty once, my Katy, As a hothouse cultivar – But she escaped to be a tree Who’s reaching for the Christmas star She’s tall and ragged, but it’s daft – I feel I can’t deny such graft.
Last year I bought a flaming Katy Who I water faithfully, Yet she and I, we both us know She’ll never bloom again for me. Some plants we keep not just for show, I guess that’s just the way we grow.
Alas, I am an absent host, But help yourselves to meat and wine From out my cellar, share a toast – I won’t be home, but it’s all fine. My albums should be worth a look, So find yourself a hidden gem. Provide a home for all my books – I have no further use for them. Please stop the milk and feed the cat And water Harriet the fern, And split my cash and sell my flat – I’m done with them, they’ve served their turn. I’ve had to leave, I can’t say where – I don’t know where. I won’t be back. This is the one thing I can’t share – No tears, just time to sling my pack.
Rhyming Couplets 