granada la bella
where anything is possible
From the Smashwords collection of poems
Blinded by Love or Science
THE BIG BANG
Listen to the Big Bang:
crackle, crackle, fizz, pop -
Come up with me in my balloon
and listen to its constant tune.
Crackle, crackle, fizz, pop
- it means the universe is sure
to go on till the end of time
and then a little more.
The universe it flat (my hat).
There’s nothing that can stop it now.
There’s nothing that can pull it back
to what has been before.
Crackle, crackle, fizz, pop -
The echo of its cold weak voice ... -
crackle, crackle, fizz, pop -
... is saying that it had no choice.
The Big Bang set this all in motion
at just the right velocity.
It was the right kind of explosion,
the only possibility,
to spawn the Universe as we know it
(with nothing above, or beyond, or below it).
In 1998 the International Boomerang Project launched a balloon equipped to measure the cosmic background radiation caused by the separation of photons from other particles of matter some 300,000 years after the Big Bang.
Its findings suggest that the universe is flat, and not curved, as a rival theory conjectured.
THE UNIVERSE IS FLAT (MY HAT)
The universe is flat, my hat;
it spins as it expands
like a lump of pizza dough
in the caring, agile hands
of a nimble-fingered God.
THE THISTLES
BLINDED BY LOVE?
SPRING
What name shall we give
this purple-headed thistle?
Among the multitude in yellow and white.
Proud, and silver-crowned it stands:
an unloved prince
of an alien empire.
LATE SPRING/EARLY SUMMER
Nobody who has seen their
stealthy ganging-up along the river bank
any longer believes
in the innocence of the thistles.
So stealthy, their slow assembling here;
their pose, so nonchalant;
So menacing their attire...
HIGH SUMMER
The air is busy
with so many flying
and floating things.
“We buzz, we hum,
we flutter and fly, all
of us, to the thistle field.”
So full of summer life! Such
power of attraction! They must have
some hidden charm, these thistles.
AUTUMN/WINTER
Frail, brittle,
Old-man Thistle
bows his bony head towards the earth
for which he yearns.
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YOUR FRIEND
I left your party on a number nine bus.
Just slipped out quietly; didn’t make no fuss.
Didn’t want your friend to tell you I had gone away.
Didn’t want to tell you I had had enough today.
Your friend was friendly when she showed me to the door.
Just followed out behind me when I walked across the floor.
And because she was so friendly, couldn’t look her in the eye.
Just mumbled I was going, thank you, and goodbye.
If I see your friend tomorrow, I will tell her I was pissed,
Ask how late you stayed up, and about the fun I missed.
I’ll ask her if you’re coming round on Tuesday as we planned.
You know you said you’d always come if I need a helping hand.
Your friend seemed sympathetic when she saw I had to go.
She must have known what’s going on but didn’t let it show.
She’s always been so close to you. I wonder what she felt.
She smiled so understandingly. I wonder what that meant.