ALBERT

Albert
the professors who
called your
theory
more art than
actual physics

are crying because the
students have
set fire to
the university

sadly, their tears are
not flowing strong
enough

to put out
the flames

GONDOLA

was floating in a gondola
under the stars

when someone mentioned
Galileo, and deep canals on Mars

and suddenly
the Universe opened up
a door

and then another

everything interleading
interleaving

and space itself
a labyrinth except
it has
decided
not to appear so

and me in my gondola
passing under
bridge after bridge

MY DEAR FRIEND, PROFESSOR DAWKINS

I defer to you
my dear friend, Professor Dawkins,
because of something in my biological origins
though nurturists would argue
it is not hard-wired
but learnt, accumulated
with chronology
(restricted only
by epistemology)

and this is the
argument I would
tend to favour
above those of
a naturist flavour

that read of everything
hairless primate,
to me
so
unsexy
to think bottom-up,
with no clothes on.

IN MY HEAD

IN MY HEAD

in my head
a thought experiment
at the beach

tangentially
involving you
coz you
is
also Pisces

but not the experiment
where I
imagine you
naked

no the one
where you and me
and Einstein
are surfing
close to
the speed of light

and there comes Stephen Hawking
to overtake us

no
at even
the thought of
that high speed
minds distort

no you and me
and Einstein
rode a shark

no you and me and the shark
ride Einstein, or
even ride a whale

all that gravity
crushing us together
driving
us apart

so close to the speed of light
the Earth turns
backwards, goes
nursery rhyme

and the
dish and spoon
(satellite dish and you-me spooning)

so fast now we
have trimmed off
all the fat
are down
to the bone and
as we surf that
wave
become that wave

Einstein and Hawking
paddling out to meet us

DON’t SKINNER ME

don’t skinner
me alive

and
stop salivating

I haven’t rung
the SR bell yet

it only gets rung
if you diligently
did
your reading

and then only
at the end of
the poem

(so now you got
that inexplicable
tingly feeling

or
placebo rule OK

you
haven’t)

IN THE DEBATE BETWEEN RUPERT SHELDRAKE AND RICHARD DAWKINS

IN THE DEBATE BETWEEN RUPERT SHELDRAKE AND RICHARD DAWKINS

the design is coming
the design is coming

constant to-and-fro
back and forth between
here and head office

meanwhile the prototype
sits thinks: I can
catch juicy
juicy bugs with
my opposable thumbs

A BLESSING AND A

A BLESSING AND A

what technology
do you
have for me

and what technology am
am I going
to miss entirely

for better, or worse? that
satellite TV inside your head
a blessing
and a curse

I ALSO HAVE AN “A” AND AN “I” IN MY NAME

the bulb in
my head

is
still lit

you might
not think it

thoughts flitting back and forth
so fast that silicon
can hardly emulate

but your
beautiful computer with
its special algorithms

is it
troubled ever by
the thought of sleep

the sleep
we do not wake from?

UNDER THIS SKIN

I need
one of those
blue, Limitless pills
(tiny pill
outside
oceanic depth within)

then I can
become a real
people’s politician
speak in
the words of
Plato, Jesus, Buddha,
Milton (poetry of John,
voice of Friedman)
sprout
halo and wings, all
angelic iconic

while still the old (but much
much smarter devil
under this skin).

ALONG THE CAM

Cambridge has
to the best of my
knowledge
nothing to do
with camshaft

but much, infinitely
much more to
do with nothing

the ultimate nothings that,
as Stephen said,
swallow whole stars
in space.