Men of Jockland, whaur ye be
rise oot o’ sleepless beds
An’ tak’ the airms o’ haunless men
an’ pull them frae their steeds.
For these gaunt chiels wi’ chisels sharp
tae cut for their intent
Wad carve an’ shape yer warldly hoors
an’ gar ye pay them rent.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Aldebaran Races
The Aldebaran ladies sing this song dah doo dah doo
The Aldebaran ladies are five miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Run on each of seven legs by day
And on twelve pseudopodia by night
Bet my credits on a sentient Crinoid Looping Nag
Somebody bet on the Arcturian Lepidopteroid Sprite.
For someone this is going home.
Across the universe
Despite the handicap of multiple arms
Of crystalline matrix intelligences,
There is common experience
There is the mundane.
For someone this is home
Where the food must arrive on the eating stool
Where the freshly flayed flesh of small bugs
Is toasted lightly over an iodine laser furnace
Until tender.
The Aldebaran ladies sing this song dah doo dah doo
The Aldebaran ladies are a thousand miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Fly on silicon-based ornithoid wings by day
Slither on liquefactive caustic slime by night
Bet all ten of my boots on a cyberian hag
Or a gigabyte lover at the speed of light.
For someone this is normal
Resting quietly by an open freezer
Watching the news on the ice-screen
With a steaming glass of liquid barium
Cilia at rest, raised up on a pedestal of brass.
For someone life is like this
Frantic at the office pushing data
Into storage media with a prong,
Calling long distance with a wax megaphone
And a long throated warbling tone of voice.
The Aldebaran ladies sing this song dah doo dah doo
The Aldebaran ladies are five million miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Run on quantum drives by night
And on neutron zapper beams by day
Bet my crystal microchips on a easy shot
Threw my round trip ticket away.
Slipping into something greasy for a party
Where all the guests are eligible tetrasaurs
With furred masticating hammocks
And the wealth
Of a despot.
And we are free to go home
First to the sports complexes of Alderbaran
Then to the sweet backstreets of Earth.
First to the fleshpots of the flying cities
Where the flesh is sold disconnected
From its matrices of bone.
First to the idyllic grass banks of Ut
Where the grasses sing you to sleep
© BH 1998
I had been looking to post a poem to celebrate the deep physics of the universe. Then I rediscovered this. First read in a darkened planetarium to ususpected audiences towards the end of the last century, it celebrates the diverse sentient life of all the known universe, at least in my own infundibulous mind. There is a tune to the chorus. I sing it sometimes. Privately.
The Aldebaran ladies are five miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Run on each of seven legs by day
And on twelve pseudopodia by night
Bet my credits on a sentient Crinoid Looping Nag
Somebody bet on the Arcturian Lepidopteroid Sprite.
For someone this is going home.
Across the universe
Despite the handicap of multiple arms
Of crystalline matrix intelligences,
There is common experience
There is the mundane.
For someone this is home
Where the food must arrive on the eating stool
Where the freshly flayed flesh of small bugs
Is toasted lightly over an iodine laser furnace
Until tender.
The Aldebaran ladies sing this song dah doo dah doo
The Aldebaran ladies are a thousand miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Fly on silicon-based ornithoid wings by day
Slither on liquefactive caustic slime by night
Bet all ten of my boots on a cyberian hag
Or a gigabyte lover at the speed of light.
For someone this is normal
Resting quietly by an open freezer
Watching the news on the ice-screen
With a steaming glass of liquid barium
Cilia at rest, raised up on a pedestal of brass.
For someone life is like this
Frantic at the office pushing data
Into storage media with a prong,
Calling long distance with a wax megaphone
And a long throated warbling tone of voice.
The Aldebaran ladies sing this song dah doo dah doo
The Aldebaran ladies are five million miles long dah doo dah doo day.
Run on quantum drives by night
And on neutron zapper beams by day
Bet my crystal microchips on a easy shot
Threw my round trip ticket away.
Slipping into something greasy for a party
Where all the guests are eligible tetrasaurs
With furred masticating hammocks
And the wealth
Of a despot.
And we are free to go home
First to the sports complexes of Alderbaran
Then to the sweet backstreets of Earth.
First to the fleshpots of the flying cities
Where the flesh is sold disconnected
From its matrices of bone.
First to the idyllic grass banks of Ut
Where the grasses sing you to sleep
And sleeping invade your mind with rash promises of love.
© BH 1998
I had been looking to post a poem to celebrate the deep physics of the universe. Then I rediscovered this. First read in a darkened planetarium to ususpected audiences towards the end of the last century, it celebrates the diverse sentient life of all the known universe, at least in my own infundibulous mind. There is a tune to the chorus. I sing it sometimes. Privately.
Alphanumeric
Alphanumeric,
The expressions of the stars,
Too small for smiles
Twinkle in the heartstrings of Heaven
Then the spheres collide
And in colliding merge
Atoms through atoms.
Shells of energy sharing
Momentary electrons
All so unpredictable.
The music of the spheres
Is how the quanta interact,
How the talking cosmos
Whispers above the heat of nothing.
Then,
Passing in what was a moment,
In what is a moment,
Or will be,
The body of which we are part
Passes through itself.
A hand through an eye,
A heart beating on a heart.
All substance is empty
But for the atom’s heart
That nucleus of time.
This belongs in a poem cycle, Initialising, which lives here. It's finished at last after nearly twenty years. Ah well, it's an enduring universe.
The expressions of the stars,
Too small for smiles
Twinkle in the heartstrings of Heaven
Then the spheres collide
And in colliding merge
Atoms through atoms.
Shells of energy sharing
Momentary electrons
All so unpredictable.
The music of the spheres
Is how the quanta interact,
How the talking cosmos
Whispers above the heat of nothing.
Then,
Passing in what was a moment,
In what is a moment,
Or will be,
The body of which we are part
Passes through itself.
A hand through an eye,
A heart beating on a heart.
All substance is empty
But for the atom’s heart
That nucleus of time.
© BH 2000
This belongs in a poem cycle, Initialising, which lives here. It's finished at last after nearly twenty years. Ah well, it's an enduring universe.
Skint
Bare,
The earth, granular,
Flayed of whatever flesh
Clothed it.
Currency,
Like some blood,
Or a river’s water,
Ran till the season’s end
Where dryness,
Spendthrift time,
Brought night,
Dead of it:
3 AM.
The earth, granular,
Flayed of whatever flesh
Clothed it.
Currency,
Like some blood,
Or a river’s water,
Ran till the season’s end
Where dryness,
Spendthrift time,
Brought night,
Dead of it:
3 AM.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Riot Rant
In a culture of greed, those who have the least are the greediest. After decades of hype, we have fuelled an expectation of plenty in everyone. We have skewed it, too, into the illusion that plenty equates with designer tops and trainers.
Add to that hungry ignorance, the sense that there is no real way out but consumption (have more, get more, take more), and we have a people who believe the formula for success is to dress yourselves up like some rich fool, no matter how you acquire the trappings, and suddenly you’re somebody.
Pile on the requirement by those (those of us) who can somehow say we have crossed the somebody threshold, who can maybe pull the ladder up behind us, to keep that gibbering mass of scapegoats at bay. Then we have created a recipe for disaster.
All we have done now is tightened the screw on the tank. Those mad buggers have nothing at stake, nothing left to lose. We have taught them to take the things of value for themselves. However misguided, that comes down to cheap shirts and TV sets. That’s why the carpet shops get hit while the banks are left alone. These people aren’t anarchists, political activists nor subversives. They are the criminal mad, driven there by our collective social disease. They are the bottom-of-the-heap consumers denied fulfilment now they are strapped for cash by dwindling jobs, slashed benefits and a declining black economy.
We’d do well to remember that we’re witnessing cold turkey, the sweats and tremors that go along with acute withdrawal of the drug of ‘stuff’. Them upstairs are intent on putting up the shutters but the basement is on fire. Those of us on the first floor are bound to suffer but we really should have been wise to the game. Someone should have been thinking about those we had left to wallow in the mess we left down there. Maybe we did, but that was pest control. Now the rats are on the march, waving their looted hi-fis and wearing their faux Gucci tees.
When we look in their eyes, that is when we will realise they are not rats after all. These are the undead. Lifeless but animated, they are factory fodder bereft of factories, thieves blindly robbing each other, the destitute hoarding petty hand-outs, the vulnerable preying upon themselves. Look in their eyes and you will see nothing. This is the zombie attack no-one prepared for; the vampire, dying of pernicious anaemia, snarling at our throats.
© BH 2011
Just had to get it off my chest.
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