Tuesday, 1 March 2011
When the Time Comes
Galaxies are fermenting in soup tins,
Where one shuttle ends another begins
While wyrd systers start weaving red banners,
Removal of hearts requires cold spanners
And a surgical spoon woven from grass.
Owners of property contrive to pass
Through helium smiles as if the broad moon
Is only significant as a rune,
Explaining how rocks may be defeated,
How oceans may have to be deleted,
How mountains shall be humbled, how a gorge
Might well be remembered as the last forge
Whereat Vulcan clattered and Wayland Smith
Hammered intricate lattice-work of myth.
Speaking nothing of history, rather
Telling the future it’s always farther
Away than is usually suggested,
As it’s there hypotheses are tested
And one magnificent monument raised
On a plinth of ice, on a weak day praised
For the observation of lassitude,
While what is wrong is the right attitude.
Which is sad, of course, and joyful, of course,
When the book is written and yet the source
Is not even mentioned, despite the sound
Of weeping becoming ever profound
Amongst atheists who learn to insist
The nothing they are sure of does not exist.
So bring sandwich bags for the parapets
To keep certain revolutionaries
Unsure of what the latest wind carries,
Now doctors are consulting flights of birds,
Letting ministers explain why huge herds
Of pint glasses dashed against cobblestones,
Is final confirmation no one owns
A single garden statue worth coaching,
And that stars are just headlamps approaching
Dave Alton