Mix flour and sugar, eggs and butter

Cocoa, lemon or vanilla

Beat and bind them well

And even then.

If you really tried

You could find a way

To separate them out again.

That’s a mixture.

But put it in the oven:

Apply heat

And chemical reactions will take place

You’ve got yourself a compound there

And things will never be the way they were

The only thing that’s left to do

Is eat.

This article made me feel really sad about kingfishers possibly not knowing how beautiful they are. Which is shameless anthropomorphism: of course they don’t!

I’m not very special

My feathers are brown

I’m nobody really

I flit up and down

By the river, catch fish

With my long pointy beak

I do not stand out

I’ve no interesting plumage

To speak of. I’m just

One more little brown bird.

You say that I’m beautiful?

Don’t be absurd!

https://www.blueknot.org.au/Resources/General-Information/Impact-on-brain

Amygdala, my darling

It’s going to be alright

I know the world’s alarming

And you deal in fight or flight

To you it’s very natural

To flood my brain with panic

Amygdala, my darling

Try not to be so manic

I promise you we’re safe now

I wish you’d understand

But you did not develop

The way that we had planned:

When safety isn’t guaranteed

When we are very small

We teach you that security

Does not exist at all.

Amygdala my darling

I’ll say it every day

You’re loved and you are cherished

And life is not the way

It was when you were growing

I know you’ll never hear

But still I keep on telling you

Amygdala, my dear.

I’ve just noticed something odd:

Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter,

Saturn, Neptune and Pluto

Are all famous Roman Gods.

There’s one whose namesake is unique:

Uranus, he’s Greek.

A primitive, primal sky-god…

Not one of the more famous

Members of the pantheon.

And his Roman equivalent, Caelus

Is a name that trips perfectly well off the tongue

So what I want to know is why

Would you name a planet after

An obscure god of the sky,

In a different language altogether,

Unless you just wanted every scientist ever

To have to keep saying “Uranus”

Forever?

The usual colour of light

Is as we perceive it, plain white

But if you’re quick witted

You’ll know how to split it

And rainbows are pretty and bright!

You’re getting some catch up limericks. Sorry.

When a substance is solid in state

The particles do not vibrate

But when heat is applied

They may wobble and glide

And eventually liquidate.

A sestina seems a peculiarly appropriate form to write about DNA, being the twisty ladder of poetic forms. However it’s not easy to control what comes out when I write a sestina. I wasn’t expecting a diatribe about the National Curriculum but here we are.

It’s really fascinating, DNA

The twisted molecules in every cell

Contain the code that tells you who to be

I find it unbelievable, the way

They take a tiny sample, and can tell

If it belongs to you or him or me!

It’s a confusing subject, though, to me

I must admit I never got an A

In science, but as far as I can tell

When scientists look closely at a cell

And peer into the nucleus the way

Old Crick and Watson did then that must be

Biology, it’s all that it can be!

But in the cell’s the code that makes me me

And code? That’s not biology, no way!

It’s more like mathematics, physics. Eh?

How come there’s coding deep inside each cell?

They say it’s in the chemicals but tell

Me: Shouldn’t that be chemistry? We tell

The kids at school that sciences should be

Three separate subjects, each in its own cell

But it’s becoming clearer now to me

You cannot think like that with DNA

It really makes me think about the way

The education system works. We weigh

And measure and find wanting and we tell

Each student that they have to get an A

As though there’s just a single way to be

Intelligent. It’s very strange to me

All our potential, written in each cell

Is measured so reductively. They sell

The sciences as separate? No way!

Just like each cell contains what makes me me,

Science is intersectional. I’ll tell

You how I think our lessons ought to be

Holistic, merged, just like our DNA

Each tiny cell contains a tale to tell

About the way the way we learn could be

It seems to me the clue’s in DNA

This is a grudge I’ve held ever since I was a temporary teaching assistant in the science department of a secondary school. We are talking circa 2004. I don’t forget.

Dear Mr Khan

It’s fine.

I know it is important that Year Nine

Perceive the difference between

Solution and suspension

And that it’s most easily seen

In instant and filter coffee respectively.

Filter coffee by the way

That I bought to drink when supervising lunchtime detention

That you are meant to do but always dump on me.

Filter coffee that is a luxury

On my humble level two salary

Filter coffee you quite often drink

And no I don’t begrudge it,

Even though you earn much more than me

But Mr Khan, honestly

To pinch the whole packet as a teaching tool

And never stop to think

About replacing it? That’s just not cool.

Dear Mr Khan,

This suspension

Of your rights to my coffee

Would never have been necessary

If you had not thought it would be OK

To grudgingly replace my Tesco Finest Espresso

With a jar

Of

Fucking

Nescafé.

My friend Crake gave me a present: a Marimo ball.

Their name is Algy. Seen here riding the bus home with me.

I do not think

I merely sink

And photosynthesise

And rise

Again.

I’m very zen.

One day Issac Newton was under an apple tree

A fruit struck his head and he had an epiphany

He rubbed at the bruise as he ran out of fucks

And he stated his theorem: “Everything sucks!”