Tribute to Stephen Hawking, by Michael Carding

A BRIEF HISTORY IN RHYME     (in three parts) by Michael Carding

Solar Sonnet

Aristotle’s nested spheres

Described the universe for years;

Copernicus, in middle age,

Set the sun at centre stage;

Galileo, Kepler too,

Confirmed through telescopic view;

Newton drilled right to the core,

Motion kept within the law.

God and man, creative tension,

Somewhere in the fourth dimension.

Then Einstein steps onto the line

Challenging both Space and Time,

Urging light and thoughts to bend:

When did it start? Where will it end?

Epitaph for Hawking

Time and Space freed from linear finity,

Philosophers and mathematicians out of the box,

Poets break the bonds of metre and rhyme:

Absolute expansion!

If not constrained by wheelchair and communication

Then not constrained.

Insignificant, yet each new thought,

As if from a big bang, ripples and radiates

Into a universe of ideas.

Wave upon wave, increasing energy, ever expanding.

The holy grail of

Relativity reconciled to quantum:

The Treaty of Creation between God and man

Signed in a heavenly black hole.

Coda

Philosophy and physics blend

With poetry, where will it end?

Here and now.

    (Stephen Hawking died 14^th March 2018)

                                   .

The Grail, by Justin Roberts

When I heard a rumour that one of the knights who undertook the quest for the Holy Grail was still living, I felt I could not rest until I had spoken with him. Many had heard the story, but few had any notion of where he lived, and even his name seemed to be in dispute. It was only after many tedious journeyings I discovered him. His name was Bors, and he lived a solitary hermit in a desolate forest. He was now an extremely old man, and it was immediately clear that for many years he had cared nothing for his appearance or the condition of his clothes. For a long time he met my queries with immovable silence, but at length, either out of pity or wearied by my endless importunities, he began to talk, like one who had almost forgotten the use of his mother-tongue or the sound of his own voice.

He began to tell the long story of how the company of knights set forth to find the Grail, through dark and trackless forests and over perilous mountains, how they battled monsters and giants, how they endured endless traps and temptations laid before them by devils, how the faint-hearted abandoned the quest as one year followed another, though the valiant few pressed onward, sustained by the vision ……  But all these stories I had already heard, so I cut short his account with impatient questions.

What did your companions propose to do with the Grail when they found it? This question for the first time appeared to animate him.

- You do not DO anything with the Grail. It is not for USE. The Grail IS, and always will be: that is all. It exists, beyond all time and all space. Nothing more is required. He who has seen the Grail has beheld all the secrets of the universe: of life, of death, and of the life to come.

And these secrets are?

- They cannot be expressed in words.

I felt that little was being learnt, so I moved to a new line of questioning.

How did you find it?

- Not through any effort or merit of ours. The Grail is not to be ferreted out or dug for, like some sack of buried gold. It may permit itself to be found. Only one who is wholly without sin can find the Grail. He must not only be pure and undefiled in his actions, but in his words too, and even in his thoughts. As a sinful man, I could not come near it, but as an act of grace far beyond my deserts, I was permitted to glimpse it, from a distance, for an instant. That momentary vision I have held in my mind ever since, and I desire nothing but to continue to meditate upon it.

What did the Grail look like?

- It is beyond any description.

But it must have had a shape, a colour?

- It has all colours, many of which human eyes cannot perceive, and at the same time it has no colour. It is not confined in a single fixed shape, as mortal objects are: it embodies in itself all the shapes that ever are, or were, or could be.

By this time, I was beginning to wonder whether my journey had been wasted. Either he was simply a fraud, or he was a deluded old man lost in a dense fog of impenetrable mysticism, and unable to convey any useful information. In anger I said, I do not believe you found the Grail at all: in fact, I begin to doubt whether the Grail even exists.

- No matter, he said, for I know I saw the Grail. That is sufficient. I am at peace.

Flight, by Catherine Redfern

“Most of man’s ills come from his inability to sit quietly in a room.” Blaise Pascal.

But Blaise, your countrymen ignored you.
Look, look at the balloon.
That was the beginning,
man getting above himself.
Balloon, bi-plane,
Channel hops.
Aces high, slaughter figures rising.
And a second time, dog fights, night raids,
Dresden demolished, the East End flattened.
But all quite neatly finished
In a distant land,
the quiet tea ceremony shattered
with some new equipment.
And still the restlessness.
How can a room
contain this flight,
this longing for the stars?
Space, the moon. The moon?
He's on his way to Mars!
Blaise, you are alone
In that quiet room.
Man has been chasing other worlds,
but soon enough, surely soon enough?
He will return to Earth,
his neglected home -
It needs his cherishing..

Th' Col Year's Teal: a poem in Potteries dialect, by Terry Williams

Th' dee shiftoe werin th' pub, th' nate shiftoe a twom,
Anthem onnoonz weroe setdine, fer snappin tarm adcum.
 Yung Alfad polish toffees chaze, anwishy need gotmower,
Woz draineen draimz, thee rin thed ark, ov th'wen choo livd nexdower;    
Wen from thepitch blakov thepit a neery owl run gite,
A figger glued - anuther owl! twoz Alf's tern nah tershite!
"Gerroff!" eeyeld. Iz feece wozwait benee thowth grarm andert.
"Yermus beed after cummindeer injusyer owd nateshert!"

Th'goost justud angeez atAlf, 'ntarm beunterd rag.
Atlas teaspoke - inlung intoonz - "Yerannergorrafag?
"Ah binyneer nah fowty ears, wi' neethet fagsner eel,
"Anwimeen dunner cumdine th'pit. Yerseynah whar ahweel?

"Ma misseseze twoz wotdunmey in, erneva cud mashtay.
"Er lefther sugger ite meef lask - an thaswot peesnt may!"

Yun gAlf beegunter fail rates a ert yon owd col year's platr,
Antwonnwe lung afower eethote awotud put goose trait.
"Ear, averse wigger this", eesed, anchucka crosserd rink.
"Thisl warmyer innerdzup - andooyer gudahth ink!"

Th'goostay finny shtoff therlot, anthen letite asie.
"Bah, tha twerg rand!" thowl goostsed, "Mah throte wozrailly drigh!"
Ayterndiz bacca namble doff interth' dar kergen,
Anoo shudkumfrum saymar cole butyun gulAlf swerkmayt Len.

"Ayjus saynAynok", Len eesez, "Ay luct azwarm aztoost".
"Tha twerner Aynok!" Alfry plied, "Thatwerra col year's goost!"
"Nay, tha twerAynok," anserd Len, "Ayz pleed tha twoonon may,
"Ay skeers yerstif, then swigs yerrum. Tiz owert rick dussay!"

"Buttah cud seyim glue!" sedAlf, "Aranna blahn dowdsun!"
"Accoe say glued, yer greet daftwerp! Eed jus drun coe yerrum!"

 ......................................................................  

COMPREE YENSHUN

Aser follerin kwes chuns:-

1. Worrad Ay nok bindoo infer fowty ears?
2. Did goost glue afower eedad owt ferd rink?
3. AdAlf seyn coe lammer?
4. AdLen enny chaze feriz snappin?
5. Costel Stoke from buttah?

.....................................................................

(N.B. When I entered this, a message appeared offering to translate it into English! Now that really would be something!)

A Worm Turning, by John Garland

John was the sort of man, ladies said, who filled them with an urge to straighten his tie for him, or to smooth down the tuft of hair which was always sticking up at the back of his head, no matter how recently he had combed it. Margaret was always doing this for him: it was probably what had attracted her to him in the first place. She also chose what trousers and socks he should put on; or rather, she had a way of glancing pointedly at what he had chosen for himself, so that he knew she would prefer him to wear something different. “I only want you to look nice, dear!” she would explain. She was always being helpful in other ways too; taking care that he didn’t eat or drink too much, and reminding him to be careful of his weight. She asked bright questions about how he was getting on at work, and suggested ways in which he might improve his chances of promotion. Sometimes when he was speaking she corrected him on minor points of grammar or pronunciation, or suggested that his friends had probably heard one of his favourite anecdotes already. She was also always brightly helpful in suggesting ways in which he could improve his hobbies, and would draw his attention to how much better the results were when he acted on his ideas.

          She herself wasn’t always completely happy with the way things turned out. At times she found him distinctly evasive about what he had been doing when she wasn’t there. It irritated her that he wouldn’t let her know his computer password, making some feeble excuse about “security” and she was suspicious of the way he closed down the screen when he heard her approach, when all she wanted to do was help him. There might even have been a faint trace of sarcasm in the way he proposed that it might save time if she laid out his clothes for him, valet-fashion, instead of waiting for him to dress and then disapproving of his choices. On the whole she didn’t feel that it was anything much to worry about; at least, not yet. Nevertheless, someone more sensitive than Margaret might have detected the subterranean rustlings of a worm finally turning

A Question of Memory, by Peter Morford.

I’m in my wife’s doghouse. The children’s attitude has changed from normal indifference to outright hostility and it’s not my fault.
The other day the head of our Department called us all into the meeting room to make an announcement.
“The Minister had authorised us all to attend a memory training course on Wednesday. A coach will pick us up at 8.30 and take us to the Conference Centre. Please bring a book and a pack of cards. I have no idea why. That’s all.”
Out he went, leaving us to speculate. Why cards? Why book?

**

At 9.55 we took our seats. 10 o’clock exactly a tall bald man stood before us. It was Mr Mnenomic, the memory man. He told us we were here to develop our minds. He asked us to stand up, one by one, to introduce ourselves. He then named three people to bring a pack of cards to the stage.
“I want you to shuffle your cards thoroughly, then, in turn to deal them on the table, face up. I will remember the order. Do not shuffle the cards again.”
“Thank you. Now will Mrs. Evans, Mr Trevor Jones and Miss Posselthwaite bring me their books. Open your book at random and let me read one page.”
He read silently.
“Thank you. We’ll have break for coffee. I’d like to circulate among you.”
In the next 20 minutes he managed to speak to each of us. He talked about books, the Test Match and Anderson’s 500 th wicket; the hurricanes in the USA and who knows what else. As you would expect, he greeted us each by name. You know what happened next. He called the cards in the right order forwards and backwards. He recited, with total accuracy, the pages he had read in each book.
He said “Thank you. I am not a magician. I’m not a genius. I’m just a man with a trained memory. It’s very useful. Knowledge is power. Your smartphones may provide the information you need – but it’s not much use to you if you forget what you’ve read. Now I’ll show how it’s done.”
He did.
We practised our new skills and we were amazed.
He said “I hope you are pleased with your progress. What you have learned today will stick – if you practise. We will now have dinner and have a brief session afterwards.”
Freddy Hughes said, “We’ll be late getting home.”
“Accommodation has been booked for you at this hotel and we’ll have a full session tomorrow.”
“But we weren’t told to bring overnight cases.”
“A change of clothes will be in your room. Everything will fit.”
It did.
My wife was not pleased when I phoned her.
“Jeremy’s Headmaster wants to see us about his behaviour. And Doctor Pearson is worried about Mother. And you’ve got a dental appointment at 8.30 and in the afternoon we’re going with the school outing to Alton Towers.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be.”
It was planned for tomorrow, but I had forgotten.

The Impersonators, by David Bingham

Sixties all-leather or seventies white flared-trousers?

Trace used to help him with things like that. Always supportive. Washed and ironed his stage clothes. Even let him have that extra wardrobe to keep them in. Went with him on a road trip from Vegas to Gracelands and they were always the winning couple in local jive contests.

Funny though, what her sister had said, about how deep down Trace had always preferred Orbison to Elvis. Never told him mind. Made you think what else she didn’t say.

Things had changed a lot since she left. In the old days they’d have to turn people away at the door on an ‘Elvis Night’ and he could make a steady living touring the clubs. But now, Ted, the landlord, had to ring round and chivvy the old gang to come. And when he performed, he looked out over an audience of pensioners. Young at heart, yes; but sadly, a generation on the way out.

As this was to be his last gig he’d finish with Are You Lonesome Tonight.  Dedicate it to Trace. ‘It was always her favourite,’ he’d tell them. 

© David Bingham, 2017