TUESDAY AFTERNOON CAN BE LONG ENOUGH

Poems can come from anywhere. If I knew the land they lived in I'd move there. This one was sparked off by chance. The lecture room computer was locked down and we were locked out. While they tried to unlock it this idea formed.

THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE

today’s marker is a locked computer

that denies us access to the digital cornucopia

such reminders are placed strategically

but we have to want to read the signs

mostly we choose not to

who wants to think in planet time

a tuesday afternoon can be long enough

let alone attempts to imagine entropy

say the last night in the life of the earth

just before all the atoms are scattered

we are here now that’s enough

let’s celebrate instead

the fleeting eternity we live every day

I suppose I must have been thinking about a Radio 4 programme I'd listened to which was talking the heat death of the universe and about how the latest scientific perspective seems to suggest that the galaxies will become ever further apart and the night sky will empty of stars until the sun eats the world. Cheerful stuff. Let's give thanks for being alive!

I also gave thanks this week to the good people at High Moon Records, who have released both of Laurie Styvers albums on a double cd with outtakes! I've been a fan since Split Milk was released in 1972. It took me 20 plus years to locate her second album, now you can listen to everything she ever recorded solo. I leave you with a song or two.

Until next time.