Sunday 15 March 2009

andromeda blue-shifted

Here's a quickly scribbled poem or whatever you want to call it for the dim and distant future. It's something light for periodic tinkering!

andromeda blue-shifted

curving in from left side
on collision course

- that

it will be damned serious
is to mildly understate

compare it to that stray raindrop
just dripped onto the tip
of my Stabilo point 88 0.4fine
writing instrument
causing these big expanding blots on this damp paper

inevitable collision of galaxies

milk way
andromeda

andromeda
milky way

either way
it won't matter
it will make no difference

these galaxies are like dinner plates
- patrick moore
on sky at night

and they are now at opposite ends of the dinner table

that's the galactic scale
he says

galaxies are nearer than stars
he says

and so we are all
already
sheltering from the tempest
in the restaurant
at the end of the universe

or almost


where it's a long time away
in curving space

but if you're obliviously dead
it will seem to be less than an instant
claims the sommelier

two dinner plates
will smash one other to pieces
and then gather themselves up
as one reincarnated

now in the shape of a rugby ball
- the waiter with his notepad

god's not a man who plays with odd-shaped balls
says the waitress
wiping down the tables

and so here it is again -

two dinner plate galaxies
will be smashed to glorious smithereens
and will gradually come back
together as one big rugby ball
- the cook
unfastening his apron strings

but not as fish or fowl
he adds

that's complete bollocks
says the dishwasher
- frayed cloth unfolded

we have no proof that god's a man

who plays with odd-shaped balls
like the waitress
said


some will come back as a front-row forwards
others as tablecloths
declares the owner
- his clockwise arm
reaching for the closed sign

_______
gw 2009

2 comments:

  1. My head hurts after reading that Gwillym. And yet - and yet - I get a glimmer of a good poem creeping into my thoughts - the poem is in shattery bits - like the collision will cause - I am thinking aloud here - gosh my brain has just scrambled - will read it again!!

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  2. Hi Weaver, Here's the basic idea of the poem as I imagine it:
    firstly we have the poet trying to understand the astronomer the one with the real facts,
    then you have all the people in the restaurant with their pet theories (a bit like various religions contradicting galileo, copernicus etc),
    then you have the owner (space-time is the owner of the restaurant and also the universe) who may decide to turn the sign to closed - it's also a convenient way to close the poem
    'oblivious' is a key word in this poem
    because from oblivion
    we may yet rise again
    like the new galaxy and
    in the new model galaxy
    although it has to be said some of us will be front-row forwards (imagine pushing, think pioneers, explorers, shakespear's tempest)
    and others will be mere cloths, was going to say dishcloths, but tablecloths will do, in other words uninspired persons or mere tools.
    ciao,
    g

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