051321c

 

both our cards

charged for the same order

entangled

092120c

 

wobbling disk

UFO  or frisbee

but this is not a thing

it's a boundary, a surface

a separation between water and air

a busy place

where molecules pass constantly

in and out

and bigger things

like my finger

and my lips

as I drink the meniscus away

051020b

potshot boys
shooting up the arteries
strung-out theory

042520b

I understand the lift,
provided by the umbrella,
but how the heck did Mary Poppins
steer the thing?

032120c

turning from the sun
earth beams bloody at the stars
infrared love

093019b

The inner and outer worlds were at peace, until physicists from the outer world proved that Perelandra could not exist.

011219c

Let There Be ... Everything


splitting the atom
dom't make me laugh
splitting the quark
now that's the thing
here, Bubba, hold my beer

122718c

Chemical elements don't vary among the planets. So, barring extreme differences of pressure and temperature,  no new minerals should be found  on other planets.. Perhaps a few variants that we have never seen before, but that is all we can reasonably hope for.  No dilithium,, alas. Ice 9 is far more likely.

112318b

electrons flee
its voracious maw
galaxy falls

062618b

a new rotation
the sun rising in the South
thaws the eastern pole

032118b

Arachnophobial Blues

House flies jam on silken strands,

Bringing the blues home,

Webs are mostly space, like atoms

Connected by invisible strands of force,

Electrons, coming in too close, may stick.

Here the analogy snaps, the fly, tumbling,

Wings glue-stuck and trembling,

Plummeting through space,

To the glad microbial arms,

Of its vasty final home.

122117c

on Enceladus

"rocks" of frozen methane
slide on the underside of its ocean's icy lid

slow currents
mimic the effect of wind
on terrestrial deserts

082017c

they
rang
spacetime's
bell: ripples
did you feel it too?
gravity records black-hole death

081517

Small world

So Jimmy, his mama want sugar to bake him a pancake, so she send him to the store with a dollar for a sack of sugar. But soon he come running back. He got no sugar.

"Mama," he say, "ain't no store. The street, she just end past Auntie Louise trailer."

"Jimmy, go ask Auntie if she have sugar," his Mama say.

Soon Jimmy come running back, with a cupful of molasses. "Auntie out of sugar," he say, "she send molasses."

So Mama stir up the molasses, flour, and she see she have no egg.

"Run Jimmy, fetch me an egg from the chicken house, so I can make you a pancake."

Jimmy, he run out the back door, but he come right back. "Chicken house gone," he say, "but they was one egg in the grass," and he give it to her.

Mama crack the egg into the bowl and she stir up the batter. She pour the batter in the skillet. This will be one fine pancake! But when she flip the pancake, it land on the floor and roll out the door.

"Jimmy," Mama shouts, "fetch me that pancake!" He run out the door and down the road.

The pancake roll past the mimosa tree and its pink fans hanging down, past Auntie Louise trailer and her lilies, over the plank bridge, and Jimmy run after. When he get to the other side of the bridge the store be gone, but the pancake keep rolling and Jimmy keep running. He running by the cow pasture (the cow, she chewing her cud), and he see his house just there beside the road in front of him, chicken on roof. The pancake keep rolling past house and mimosa tree, and Jimmy, he run faster, for to catch it. Bridge, cow (still chewing), house (Mama in the doorway), tree, cow, house (Mama shouting), tree. Pancake keep rolling and Jimmy keep running. The road, she keep ashrinkin', and pretty soon it be just Jimmy and the pancake, the road rolling up behind his heels and he catch the pancake just before everything be gone. Jimmy take a big bite. It the best pancake he ever have.

Publ. Daily Cabal 2008

050717

objects in motion


a poem in ships
a station
and a billion bits of debris

approach your dock slowly
wipe that egg and burger
off your screen, hope the locks mate
without a broken spanner in the works

052616

time
"randomly" sampled computer-style
reliving bad times again and again
never hitting the good times again
this'll be the next big thing for physics
peaks forever
never valleys or hard work
till the time-hounds come

111613

Case Study


I like this best, the wild-eyed scientist said,
swirling high a fine klein bottle,
holding it up to the fluorescent night
my love is chronicling life
among the bottle born & bred
inside's a world I've made
he smiled and set the bottle down.

How does your love escape the bottleverse,
I asked, when's project's run its course,
and every datum well in hand?
why, he does not, came the urbane reply,
addressed to my lips and lower,
not to my eyes; I smiled,
and we commenced to dance.

Scientific ardor flamed amid the racks
and bottles, encircled by melange of sparking physic-do,
we kissed, I slipped inside's boundaries,
and signed my mark on table, floor, and wall,
on skin, on heart, on scientific soul as well,
for thus our months together well did prove.

But of late a pall has fallen on our lovers' nest,
my companion's hard awork, not spending nights with me,
so I've precautioned for myself a twisted bottle,
with an extra dimension, or two; or three;
if my lover pops one on me in my throes,
I'll inside-out it with my own,
for I don't believe that any bottle,
could be world enough to satisfy the likes of me.


end

number 9

the white button


cold rocks are more dense than hot

it's inconvenient when you're not at home

I like you, but you're getting old


has no specific function



end

23rd century science

deep night and she still
hunches over the quark scope
she flies eyes open