© Roy Ernest Ballard 2015
Too like a dream
Sad for something that you held
a moment once and lost,
in all the world unparalleled,
a fleeting pentecost,
a revelation briefly gained,
too like a dream to be retained?
I share with you that history,
that joy without a cause,
the unexpected mystery
that boundless love is yours;
an insight from another earth
esteeming us beyond our worth.
Then, like a song we might have sung
but cannot find again;
words lost upon the tip of tongue
like colours in the rain,
it's gone, though we may clutch and claw,
to traces, hints, to bliss no more.
Plato and Aristotle.
‘I was told by
Socrates’
said Plato once to
Aristotle
‘Something called the
axolotl
dwells beyond
uncharted seas’
'Disbelieve it, my
dear Plato
surely you've been at
the bottle
down at the Old Daub
and Wattle
where they sing of
the potato
and the mythical tomato
soaring over the
castrato
who can hit the
highest C's' .
'Rub me down
with spikenard'
said Plato since it
scanned so well.
'Rub me down and rub
me hard;
you're a thinker, I
can tell'
With a sniffle and a
snottle
Aristotle knocked the
dottle
from the briar pipe
he vented,
blowing rings and
vortices.
Smoking hadn't been
invented
but the future is
portented
by such brilliant
minds as these .
The dog Griswold, R.I.P.
Old Griswold 's lucky star had shone
upon these sausages he ate.
He had his fun and then was gone
to custody for liaison
with this delightful bitch he met,
Old Griswold 's lucky star had shone.
He had the luck to fall upon
a butcher's tray, divinely set.
He had his fun and then was gone
with M&S filets mignon
but when we took him to the vet
Old Griswold 's lucky star had shone.
The shop staff trembled and turned wan
on sight of this pernicious pet.
He had his fun and then was gone.
They had him collared before long
with sausages uneaten yet.
Old Griswold 's lucky star had shone;
he had his fun and then was gone.
We listened in a small hotel
to ‘Smoke gets in your eyes’.
The skylark never sang so well
as under our clear skies.
We watched the river meet the sea
to merge in one, my love and me.
The sea has moods and motion
that every sailor knows;
as he can read the ocean
I read the ebbs and flows,
the thoughts and feelings, every trace,
that move upon your darling face.
More than the river and the sea
beyond the furthest beach
are bonds uniting you with me
for in the furthest reach
to which the floods of time extend
you are my lover and my friend.
Too like a dream
There are some artful melodies
one can’t admire enough.
I don’t know what their secret is
nor how they do their stuff.
How does a simple barcarolle
sound all the harp strings of your soul?
There was a rose bush growing wild,
perhaps to be admired,
a natural beauty undefiled
but so my brain is wired
I contemplate then go away
with longings that I can’t allay.
I’m sad for something that I held
a moment once and lost,
in all the world unparalleled,
a private pentecost,
a revelation briefly gained,
too like a dream to be retained.
Matrix Equation
With the expenditure of much ink and paper I recently derived the first complete solution of the reaction rate equation for three irreversible, consecutive reactions:
Here it is:
A in square brackets is the concentration of A, etc. at time t and A0 is the concentration at time zero with rates of
reaction a, b, and c.
If you can read the language and
appreciate its symmetry, the result is poetry. All the same I am uncertain whether it should be put before an
audience where only one in a hundred can understand it.
A discoverer of a lost poem of
Sappho’s said recently ‘For three
months I alone knew it. It was like being shipwrecked with Marilyn Munroe’. My feelings exactly about this equation!
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