Tiny, delicate

You seem so easily crushed

On the forest floor

Easily dismissed

Mildly flavoured, you

Can kill anyone.

Huge and extensive

You show us only the tips

Of toxic fingers

Oil spilled on the wet road

Should be dark, slick and shiny

Instead it makes spectrum circles

A dirty kind of beauty.

Falling rain splits the colour in light

Throws it pure across the sky

And we speak of bridges to the gods

Of fairy treasure

But oil traps both the light and the fallen rain beneath it.

And holds the magic.

Owing to illness I’m way behind on this, but I’m going to get caught up today and start #NaNoWriMo in style.

Starting with a poem about a famous bit of antiscience for Autism Acceptance Month.

If it was a vaccine

That caused the way I think:

The chemicals and toxins,

If that’s the missing link…

Well then I need to tell you

Although it may cause pain,

That if it was a vaccine

I’d have it done again.

If all my special interests

Came out of a syringe

And being crap at small talk

And yes, the way I binge

On fantasy and sci-fi

Instead of going out

To loud and raucous parties

Well then I have no doubt

A life quite free from boredom

Is what that jab ensured

I’m glad I had that vaccine:

I’m glad that I was cured.

(P.S.

Because I am autistic

I need to specify

Vaccines do NOT cause autism:

That’s nothing but a lie)

Citation needed. I think I learned this off QI.

Pigeons see a speeding lorry

As crawling, practically parked.

Their daring last minute flight

From under the wheels

Makes us draw in breath and clench teeth

But for them, there was plenty of time.

They see us in slow motion

Strange, lumbering forms.

Dangerous, maybe, like zombies

But like zombies, easily outwitted.

You’d almost think it would be the opposite but

Because pigeons see the world through high-speed eyes

Everything

Is

Slowed

Right

Down.

More nanobot than microbe,

It climbs into your cells

And reprograms all your data

To make you feel unwell.

Without a host to alter

It will not long survive

But can it truly die if

It was never quite alive?

I’m very tired, so here’s a quick query for creationists

If you believe, as many do

That God created everything

In seven days, then why don’t you

Believe he could have had a way

To do so that involved a plan

To kickstart that with the Big Bang

And then just let it all unfold

In its own time. Yes you’ve been told

It happened over just a week

But wouldn’t it be rather odd

If what we call a week on Earth

Was what a week would be to God?

This poem takes place on the day of the (more recent) Sheffield Flood: 25th June 2007

Smoke rises vertically

On the day the storm came to change our city

We three headed for home in pouring rain

Direction shown by smoke drift but not by wind vanes

You’d tried to drive, but realised soon enough that it was hopeless

Abandoned the car by Morrisons and hoped

The water would not reach it.

Wind felt on face; leaves rustle; wind vane moved by wind

Instead we trudged and waded, tried to use

The seven hills to our advantage. Kept to the high ground

Leaves and small twigs in constant motion; light flags extended

The staff of a car showroom, stranded,

Crouched in their business suits

Making paper boats out of catalogs

And cheering as they raced them down the road.

Raises dust and loose paper; small branches moved.

the teenagers we tried each day to teach our strange new language to

Whooped and hollered splashed each other and guffawed

Sure of a day off tomorrow, they waved at news crews circling above.

Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters.

It was 6 miles. We started to wonder

Were our friends safe, our houses dry inside?

Large branches in motion; whistling heard in telegraph wires; umbrellas used with difficulty.

“Mine will be fine”, you said. “I’m on the 5th floor.”

Invited us to warm and dry ourselves before we carried on.

We climbed the flights of stairs, dripping and swearing

Three drowned rats

Whole trees in motion; inconvenience felt when walking against the wind.

We’d only ever talked of work before.

Been colleagues, but not friends,

You crossed the boundary: rolled us all a spliff

We sat around your kitchen table, smoking.

Twigs break off trees; generally impedes progress.

We talked of wind and rain in other countries

You told us that in Urdu rain comes down

Not as cats and dogs but mortars and pestles

You showed us, on the wall, your favourite poem:

The Beaufort Scale, you said, was beautiful.

Slight structural damage (chimney pots and slates removed).

My skin had been dyed purple by my soaking coat.

You cackled as I pulled the clammy leather on.

And the two of us left you for the final mile

Seldom experienced inland; trees uprooted; considerable structural damage

Giddy, giggling, we stood on the bridge, and watched the water raging underneath us

Until we realised the stones we stood on could be swept away themselves, and hurried home.

Very rarely experienced; accompanied by widespread damage.

I knew we would be friends now, but somehow,

We never shared that intimacy again.

And then, suddenly, a sombre announcement in staff briefing:

You’d been missing for days, in your flat, with the scale you taught us as a eulogy.

Devastation.

I’m in hock for a poem, so I’m doing two today.

This poem was inspired by awesome friend and poet Kate Garrett, who is apparently getting a sparrow skeleton sent to her by a friend. I guess the references to Bird anatomy and decay are sciencey. If you don’t want to think about dead birds and what happens to them so they can become skeletons, look away now.

I found you on the doorstep

Small, brown and unremarkable.

Your siblings in the hedge howling a dirge

That sounded cheerful only

To human ears.

The cat coldly observed my actions

Daring me to spurn the gift of you.

I cradled you in fingertips, noting

The smell. Not unlike the time

I bought chicken fillets

Forgot about them in my bag

And found them, days later.

How long had you been there?

I don’t know why I marvelled at your lightness

Of course, you were airborne once.

But for a moment I felt

that if I only threw you skyward

The wings would remember

And away you’d go.

I buried you.

A funeral seemed like needless anthropomorphism

The dustbin, somehow disrespectful.

I dug a hole in the flowerbed

(Having distracted the cat with sardines in his bowl

So he wouldn’t see my ingratitude)

I dropped you in, and covered you.

You rested in the earth about a year.

I often thought of you

Googled: how quickly do feathers decay?

Imagined maggots feasting

If I saw a housefly

I’d wonder if it owed its life to you.

Until one day, a friend

Wrote with dark beauty

Of the bewitched fragility of bird bones

Of her desire to hold them in her hands

I could not leave you longer in the ground.

Archaeology: I dug with fingers

Afraid to touch you, more afraid to break you

You were further down than I remembered

And not as rotted as I had expected.

But still, I cleaned you gently,

Put you on the windowsill to bleach

(I shut the cat out, in case he remembered)

I loved you for your beauty.

Somehow, alive, you had been commonplace.

But now, in death, you had become angelic.

I wrapped you in black silk.

(As much for the touch of the gothic

That would make my friend smile

As to protect you)

I laid you in a box of cotton wool

And sent you flying.

Heat will not go where heat is. It prefers
To find a place with less heat, spread itself
And fill the space it’s in. It doesn’t want
To crowd together, hotter, hotter hotter.
Heat wants to cool.

Heat is created by activity.
Heat’s work, and work is heat. Flanders and Swann
Have taught us this, and I would be remiss
If I were not to tell you where I learnt it.

I almost didn’t write this poem at all.
I did not want to write where they had written
Instead, I wanted to write something else.

The urge for entropy is very great
Sometimes it even stops me writing poems.

Words cool, and dissipate,

(If you’re not careful).

Here’s the science bit:

Shampoo cleans your hair. That’s it.

All the rest is lies.