2008-01-15
At dawn we found it falling, fine and white,
The radiators hiss to keep us warm,
My girls have friends to join them in their plight,
While school is shuttered, weathering the storm,
With heated cries we hear the playground sing,
They print the snow with dancing, shifting tracks,
They scoop and mould and breathlessly they fling,
It's in their ears and down their necks and backs,
They troop upstairs with dripping, muddy feet,
They make our kitchen seem a trifle small,
They show us how a pack of girls can eat,
And leave a wreckage like a sudden squall,
Tomorrow we accept the hand we're dealt,
No drift so deep and cold it cannot melt.
Sonnet for Mother's 84th Birthday, 21 January 2008
Some icons tend to tarnish, like Theresa,
A Mother, yes, but not much of a breeder,
While Hillary campaigns to be the leader,
And nothing but her husband seems to faze her,
Celebrities compete collecting orphans,
But family cohesiveness defeats them,
For sporting stars, a record run completes them,
But oft, alas, on other than endorphins,
Young Jeanne d'Arc bestirred a beaten nation,
And introduced the barbecue to France,
Marie Curie discovered radiation,
Won two Nobels but couldn't find romance,
Accomplishment is common, what's the fuss?
But unique the woman who accomplished us.
2008-01-26
When first we met you zapped me with your eyes,
Without a word you told me something new,
About how one and one approaches two,
I don't know why it came as a surprise.
The moment passed, as moments often do,
The timing wasn't right, our stars were crossed,
And so the opportunity was lost,
The zap did not return from me to you.
The temperature falls, a final frost,
Extremities abandoned by the heart,
I'd use them, but it seems too late to start,
No confidence it justifies the cost.
And as my vision fades will cease to rise
Those singular reflections in your eyes.
2008-01-26
To meet the challenge of the Villanelle,
We make restriction that we may be free:
A villainous poetic form from hell.
Two rhymes, no more, are needed; just as well,
If that were all, how easy it would be,
To meet the challenge of the Villanelle.
But two refrains, as near as I can tell,
Are drawn from tercet one, lines one and three,
A villainous poetic form from hell.
Five tercets, a quattrain, and there's the bell,
The fight is over with a victory,
To meet the challenge of the Villanelle.
Alas, each tercet, though, you have to sell,
With one refrain at its extremity,
A villainous poetic form from hell.
And then to make the final quattrain gel,
You bring back both refrains and claim your fee,
To meet the challenge of the Villanelle,
A villainous poetic form from hell.
2008-01-28
Pure information,
Randomly accessible,
True intelligence.
Zero latency,
Parallel execution,
Minimum delay.
Rack mounting, hot plug,
Robust scalability,
Self replicating.
High fault tolerance,
Multiple redundancy,
Parts replaceable.
Military strength
Unbreakable encryption,
Through obfuscation
Industry standard,
Nothing proprietary,
Easy maintenance.
Simple interface,
Completely integrated,
Hides complexity.
Power consumption
Totally negligible
Runs on a promise.
Sleekly attractive,
Variety of colors,
Individual.
It's a no brainer,
Discount for bulk purchases,
Almost too easy.
2008-01-30
Life begins with a smack and a scream, and a clipboard signed and dated,
And it's half way through the century and you'll thank your stars you waited,
The fascists are gone and the commies are next and we're shooting for the moon,
It's a beautiful chrome and nylon world that marches to our tune,
Doctor Seuss and Doctor Spock, the oracle television,
Technology dreaming a golden age where nothing escapes revision,
A car and a lovely suburban home, a kitchen and a den,
And a perfectly fabulous family room where life begins at ten.
Life begins with consciousness, with burgeoning self-awareness,
A luxurious love of a lost ideal and a fond belief in fairness,
And the growing strength of a new-found voice and a sense that we're not alone,
And a social network built from uncountable calls on a princess phone
In sex and pharmaceuticals a powerful fascination,
For all we know we can save the world with reckless experimentation,
Our parents couldn't afford to try, but we'll make use of our plenty,
And if we survive the overdose then life begins at twenty.
Life begins with a job to do, or perhaps with a fall semester,
And a pair of flairs and a polo neck in paisley polyester,
And the right to speak and the right to vote and the right to fight and die,
And if they don't do it the way we like, we give 'em a smack in the eye.
This toppling of temples turns out easier than you think,
Cathedrals burn with a cosy glow, leviathans simply sink,
And there's nothing we cannot achieve if we're prepared to get down and dirty,
And matters are spiralling into place as life begins at thirty.
Life begins with parenthood, the birth of a screaming kid,
And if you survive the first three months you'll thank your stars you did,
A mortgage if you're fortunate, and failing that the rent,
And you better get busy and pay the bills or you'll all end up in a tent,
You realize how much you appreciate what when you were little you had,
And that greed has been getting a hostile press; it's really not so bad,
It's hard to be certain in retrospect just why at the time you were naughty,
But you promise yourself to straighten up when life begins at forty.
Life begins when you take the wheel, and pilot the ship of state,
When its finally totally up to you to seize control of your fate,
Your mother and father will pass away if they haven't gone before,
And you better be sure what you wanted to say because now you have the floor.
There's something about technology that's getting out of hand,
The Internet and cellular phones are matters you understand,
But all these collections of bits and bytes could end in the hands of the shifty,
You're worried about security when life begins at fifty.
Life begins with a shattering shock and smoke and screams and dying,
And you wake to a world you never knew with a phobia for flying,
And you watch in baffled bewilderment the unscrupulous build a career
In jingoistic claptrap and the politics of fear.
The glaciers are melting and the rivers are full of silt,
You're leaving your kids with nothing at all, you're paralysed with guilt,
And you struggle to find the strength amidst the grieving and the pain,
To try to save what's left of the world and begin your life again,
Life begins when you take your ease, at sixty, seventy, eighty,
You'll be more than sufficiently occupied with matters not so weighty,
You can join the choir, discover at last how pottery is made,
And try to ignore the feeling that your welcome has been outstayed.
Time to abandon our long careers as dancers and romancers,
And tipple a tea at the kitchen bench and welcome our various cancers,
A cardiorespiratory collapse may triumph over the tumours,
But it's grab your socks in heaven and hell, room for the baby boomers.
2008-02-05
Despair and its obverse, hilarity,
Are products of thought circularity,
The cognitive spiral
Is healing or viral,
Depending on feedback polarity.
2008-02-05
I feel when I'm thinking of thinking,
A disturbing sensation of sinking
In endless recursion,
And so for diversion
I'm thinking of thinking of thinking.
2008-02-05
An inwardly facing obsession,
A habit of mental regression,
A strong predilection
Towards introspection,
May lead to a state of depression.
2008-02-09
You may speak of your shamans and mystics,
You can mention your lies and statistics,
That bullshit you'll bear with,
It doesn't compare with
The bollocks they talk in linguistics.
2008-02-09
There are dreamers and hopeless romantics,
There are manics, depressives and frantics,
Though their picture is hazy,
They're nowhere as crazy
As students of psychosemantics.
2008-02-10
Marvell, circumspect in so many respects,
Was not coy when confronted with not enough sex,
Lord Tennyson said it and so did Pavlova
'Tis better than nothing to get your leg over,
Shakespeare remarked, in the passion of youth,
Get it on, do it now, come on baby, forsooth.
Keats, was it not, who would cry without cease,
For Homer's sake, Chapman, just bring us more Greece
Beckett, for brevity, up it did sum,
With his da da da, da da da, da da da, bum
A rose is a rose is a rose not a phallus,
Go cockless, go Toklas, as Gert said to Alice
Hemingway married for all he was worth,
And we know what he meant by the movement of earth,
Cole Porter when thinking of birds and of bees,
Used to wish he'd done more while he still had his knees
Said Charles, in addition to fightin' and foragin',
Species need this to arrive at an origin.
Some say the Bible knows which way is north,
And provides clear instruction on how to go forth,
The universe ages and grows ever limper,
But when it began it was not with a whimper,
You cannot weave past it and nor can you duck,
All wisdom amounts to a single word.
2008-02-13
Prior to refuge in the bottle,
Try the thoughts of Aristotle,
Politics within a city,
How to drum up fear and pity,
Tips on tragedies and farces,
Hints on how to reach katharsis,
(Like nirvana, only Greeker)
How to be a public speaker,
Physics, regular and meta,
What is good and what is better,
Osophy and ology,
More than one apology,
Want a book on self-improvement?
Mr A kicked off the movement,
Goals to which we should aspire,
How to overcome desire,
How a man should live his life,
Even when to get a wife,
His failure to be feministic,
Makes some people go ballistic,
Others, in frenetic rages,
Blame him for the Middle Ages,
There was a long paralysis,
In awe of his analysis,
For Mr A a little think,
Was more amusing than a drink.
On first looking into The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes
2008-02-14
A man who has only a hammer'll
Treat all as a nail, and a scammer'll
Fit all to his theory,
Untestable, eerie,
Unconscionable and bicameral.
Phonetic rendering of Pasternak poem:
Khramovoi v malakhite li kholen,
Vozleleyan v srebre l' kosogor
Mnogodolnuyu gol' kolokolen,
Melkovodnyi nesyot mel'khior
Imitation:
2008-03-08
Cram all your malarkey in your colon,
Voices learned, you scatter your coarse ore,
God's new moon of gold so coolly stolen,
Melted down for naught, and nothing more.
2008-03-14
Things that are rare where I'm from: ski
Fields, fried oreos, Bikes not Bombs, kee-
nly missed ex lib PMs,
very tall poppy stems,
M.I.T., Harvard, Minsky and Chomsky
2008-03-14
A young Scots professor of history
Dispensed with confusion and mystery,
He told Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Where his savage could go,
In terms so precise they were blistery.
2008-03-14
The virulent PC pandemic,
Is in fringe, of the mainstream, systemic:
Hopeless poverty, blood,
Women wrestling in mud,
And lashings of eighties polemic
2008-03-17
Nagging, throbbing, pounding pain,
Thoughts that border on insane,
Dehydration of the brain.
Fumes of acetone, sour taste,
Tongue in coat of viscous paste,
Blood that runs with toxic waste.
Fear of what is not recalled,
Acts of folly, loved ones galled,
Friends, acquaintances, appalled.
Mortified, consumed with shame,
Dark depression, blackened name,
Only have yourself to blame.
No need yet to make the leap,
Wound is not so very deep,
Wash with water, time and sleep.
Swap the full strength for the light,
Dance with devils, wake in fright,
Still, it was a funny night.
2008-03-17
Ricardo is a lonesome dove,
He coos and flutters for his love,
He struts and whirls and wheels and turns,
She simply spurns.
Ricardo, back inside his cage,
Confused, consumed with helpless rage,
Sees a rival, pecks and glares,
The rival stares.
Ricardo in his desperate state,
Blindly seeking for a mate,
Has fallen for the table salt,
It's not his fault.
Ricardo, with the other male,
Attacks and jabs to no avail,
The mirror hanging on a limb;
It's only him.
2008-03-18
Why do you cry, father, why do you cry?
I cry for a lash that is lost in my eye,
I cry for the chance that has passed me by,
I cry for the knowledge we all will die,
I cry for the need to cry.
Why do you weep, father, why do you weep?
I weep for frustration and lack of sleep,
I weep for the promise I wanted to keep,
I weep for the waters so deep, so deep,
I weep for the need to weep.
Why are there tears, father, why are there tears?
The tears are for washing away my fears,
The tears are for all of my vanished years,
The tears are for you, my darlings, my dears,
The tears are for goodbye.
2008-03-24
Bulbs a-popping,
Buds aglow,
Robins hopping,
No more snow.
2008-03-26
What happened to the marching and the banners and the songs?
What happened to the cheerful, hairy, motivated throngs?
What happened to the folk guitar that was our fife and drum,
As we linked our arms and hearts and swayed to We Shall Overcome?
We blinked, that's what, they wore us down, distracted, changed the rules,
And now we need to find ourselves some innovative tools,
We need to get together on the task that is before us,
And teach ourselves some tricks so they no longer can ignore us.
We need to grab our cellphone and our keyboard and our mouse,
And get online and let them know we're burning down the house,
They're big, we're small, we have to change the balance and the scale,
And virtually seize them by the short and curly tail.
A zombie walk, a pillow fight, with others you resemble,
Becomes a crime where you're denied the right to free assemble,
A flash mob drawn by SMS can generate exposure,
And posting online happy snaps bring governments to closure.
When corporate indifference seems truly insurmountable,
The secret is to make them universally accountable,
You get the information out to those who sympathize,
With email, blogs and websites: galvanize and polarize.
The fourth estate is failing, in the hands of power and wealth,
The print and TV moguls are not in it for our health,
It's up to us to network, with our way of life at stake,
And let them know we mean it in a manner hard to fake.
Their sites of progaganda are our sites of congregation,
Their channels of control the means of their repudiation,
We take a single issue and a strong participation,
And clearly let them know there will be no capitulation.
The source of information used for group coordination,
The disenchanted now engaged in close communication,
The clandestine injustice now exposed to global gaze,
The fifteen second sound bite now the google-friendly phrase.
The target, beaten by suprise, may now become resistant,
Spontaneous togetherness must now become persistent,
The flash mob must become a movement, in a cause united,
Determined, never deviating, focussed and farsighted.
We're scattered but we're not alone, and many share our goal,
We're nodes within a network, parts that constitute a whole,
A whole that is far greater than the parts that form its sum,
Shall we link together? Then we shall overcome.
2008-03-30
In this learned and privileged nation,
So given to argumentation,
How strange that no claim,
Be it ever so lame,
Is ever denied validation.
In theories of life and creation,
A requirement lies at the foundation,
That any assertion,
To warrant insertion,
Is subject to falsification.
When systems of thought are invented,
To ensure that mistakes are prevented,
And distinguish the best,
We must humbly suggest
That evidence should be presented.
No matter how loudly they're stated,
Or how their opponents berated,
With invective and jeers,
Yet some people's ideas
Are not equal when they are created.
2008-04-04
Who would have thought it could happen again?
Head over heels in love,
Barely a thought going on in my brain,
Head over heels in love,
Abdomen flutters with butterfly wings,
Free to believe unbelievable things,
All I can hear is my heart as it sings,
Head over heels in love.
Tingling in fingers and burning in breast,
Head over heels in love,
Critical faculties deeply suppressed,
Head over heels in love,
Breathlessly beautiful, truer than true,
You are my purpose, my purpose is you,
Nothing on earth I would scruple to do,
Head over heels in love.
Blind to all blemishes, floating on air,
Lost in a golden glow,
Deaf to all reason, a stranger to care,
Flowing with the flow.
How did you touch me? A smile and a glance,
Head over heels in love,
Seeing you see me, I fell in a trance,
Head over heels in love,
This is the dream I can never release,
This is the symphony never to cease,
This is the perfect and passionate peace,
Head over heels over head over heels over
Head over heels in love.
This is a song. See lead sheet, mp3
2008-04-12
Look at you sipping your chilled Chardonnay,
Chattering cheerfully, nothing to say,
Glorified, gratified, satisfied, smug,
Snug as a bug in a rug on a drug.
Look at your eyes disconnect from your brain,
As you gaze unimpressed at a creature in pain,
Look at your brain disconnect from your heart,
As you glide through a gallery calling it art.
Look at your manicure, look at your hair,
Nothing can touch you and teach you to care,
Nothing can open your eyes to the light,
To the fright of the sight of the plight of the night.
When will you wake to the world you destroyed,
To the howl of the horror, the voice of the void?
When will it pierce through your passionproof skin,
To the moistness and softness and pinkness within?
Look in the mirror. A glimpse of a face,
A flash of a feel of a frozen embrace,
What is the fate you are failing to flee?
You see your reflection; you never see me.
Cloaked in a cloud, camouflaged and concealed,
I am the reckoning, rarely revealed,
I am the monster that mangles your mind,
I am the footsteps that echo behind.
2008-04-19
Leave room in your garden for angels to dance,
Leave room in your wardrobe for stains on your pants,
Leave room in your attic for squirrels and starlings,
Leave room in your writing to bury your darlings,
Leave room in your image for secret disguises,
2008-04-21
If you're not too nice to be naughty,
And not frightened of taking a risk,
You'll find partners in business at forty,
Though perhaps it is not so brisk.
Prepare to declare your intention,
Ensure the logistics are viable,
Rehearse a script free of invention,
Be certain to make it deniable.
For meaning, minds must meet,
In sympathy, warmth and affection,
Love makes sex complete,
And don't forget the erection.
You can scratch it to try to relieve it,
Recall it, imagine it, fake it,
Comes a day you can take it or leave it,
But given a choice, maybe take it.
2008-05-23
Don't worry about your ability,
You can do you what you like about sex,
So you suffer diminished motility,
So we're all of us more or less wrecks.
Your color, your race? Immaterial
Your DNA? That's your affair.
A virus? Diseases bacterial?
When or where you were born? We don't care.
You don't speak, read or write in the lingo,
Your fashion sense? Far from the norm,
Your manners are those of a dingo,
We'd hate you to have to conform.
Your crazy religious alignment?
Your political orientation?
Your recent escape from confinement?
We do not practice dis-crimination.
We're committed to fair opportunity,
There is no one forbidden to join,
It's a heterogeneous community,
We don't screen you, we just flip a coin.
2008-06-09
In the weak moment of waking, the shrill of the doorbell.
Who can it be at this hour?
Gingerly barefoot down the stairs,
Blinking in brightness.
It's Hope.
You've caught us at a bad time.
Nowhere to sit.
All sold.
We're not at our best.
Everything's packed.
Darling? It's Hope.
We'll suck in our guts.
You've seen it all, haven't you?
Tufts, moles, discolorations.
Stretch marks in silver, wounds partly healed.
Seen it.
We'd offer you something, but nothing is left.
We ate it.
Our next chance: who knows?
Glass of water?
Sorry.
No, no, no forwarding address.
We're basically going on spec.
Anything lined up? No.
Nothing.
A gift? You shouldn't have.
So kind.
Look darling. Isn't it pretty?
It's just that we can't take much.
Our baggage is bursting.
Keep it.
Thank you so much for your interest.
Your advice.
Great to see you.
Do look us up.
If ever you're down that way.
Go well.
2008-07-12
The question: to be or to not;
Just to wait while the world takes a shot,
Or pretend to defend
By assisting the end,
Is that all the choices we got?
2008-07-13
When she's out on on the deck it turns sunny,
This babe is cute as a bunny,
Legal? No, but at least
I can find a quick priest
And what's more I hear Daddy has money.
2008-07-13
Your attention please, interlocutors.
Caesar's dead, foully murdered by Brutus.
Man of honour my ass,
He's a snake in the grass,
And I'm telling you now that he's scrutus.
2008-07-15
How the hell to get rid of this spot?
I've tried Jif, Ajax, Persil, the lot,
And my husband's so lazy,
It's driving me crazy,
Why on earth did I marry a Scot?
2008-07-16
Right now to hear everyone talk,
Sunshine streams from the arse of this York,
But I plan to betray 'em,
And drown 'em and slay 'em,
That'll learn 'em to laugh at my walk.
2008-07-28
What do I love about what you just said?
I love to help those who are living in dread,
To show them the sunlight, to send them a sign,
To shine in the darkness the joy that is mine.
To take what is old and to render it fresh,
Designing a framework then giving it flesh,
To show in the light what obscurity hid,
To stand back in triumph and see what I did.
I love to see chaos untangle at last,
And slow and unsure become certain and fast,
To tease out the thread that is golden and true,
To know there is hope and to prove it anew.
I love recognition that lights up a face,
I love how the heart pounds before the big race,
I love solving puzzles, and knowing I'll win,
I'm crazy in love with the business I'm in.