© 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.

Smoke gets in your eyes

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!

 http://gladnose.blogspot.co.uk/