Showing posts with label sonnet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sonnet. Show all posts

2018-06-06

New Muses: forever inwords

I'd been meaning to post the words to these for some time, then I forgot...

...but now somebody asked, so here they are!




New Muses for a Post-Human Age



Calliope

Call me Calliope. My steampunk look
left over from the fairground organ vibe...
It was a strange new way to be alive
encoded on punched cards, but I took that
and ran with it. I formally enlarged
my sphere of influence: from epic verse
—the quests of heroes... battles... kings and curses—
to something even worse, I'm NP-hard

computation. I am the patron saint
of any project where the work of brain
exceeds the work of muscle by a hundred
fold. I urge you on, through records numbered
in the billions. Always epic at heart,
the oldest muse, but now... state of the art.


Clio

Is Vanderella going to leave Stu?
I've the hot gossip, all the celeb sleaze
for you. It's me who helps sustain belief
that heroes have the hots for you; the muse
of fan-boys shipping couples whom the authors
did not dream were close. I love red carpet spite
and all the tiny dresses that the big nights
bring out to play. I love to see the other

starlets' partners start to drool. I am quite mean
(necessarily) with all your fanfic scene,
your flash/slash stories and most of your art
but also note I hold your private heart
up for the other otaku's gaze. Their praise
I offer you: we'll fan your secret blaze.


Euterpe

There's drugs and sex and then there's me, I've ditched
my flute and taken up the Stratocaster.
There's sex and drugs and ever faster, faster
on motorbikes. I am nobody's bitch
but I will ride you in a motel room
with both our earbuds plugged into the noise.
I offer leather jackets and other toys,
like pills and needles of straw-coloured doom—

my cultists are the twenty-seven club
and I tell you there is no greater love
and never any form of sadness sweeter
than for the young musician turned to meat
before their time. I'm loud, not sweet, not modest.
I am the one, the only, true rock goddess.


Erato

Erato here, you think there's nothing new
beneath the sun. You say you've fucked in all
the ways, by pairs and threes. You say you fall
for boys and girls and toys and ropes and screw
your parents and their weird ideas... but I'll
tell you that sex is of the mind, and gender's
in your pretty head. My gift to you is tender
feelings of all types, no need to justify

if they're for someone cute or for a self
made for yourself—personas off the shelf
or custom-built. I am the mirror for
your work-in-progress life of love and more.
You follow me with every stroke of brush
on image: perfect yourself; there is no rush.


Melpomene

My mask is no less tragic now I've swapped
the costume for the soberest of suits
and left the boarded stage so they can shoot
me here, behind the fancy desk. I've chopped
your world down into sound bite size. I prize
all moments of sick carnage I report
and human interest sobs. One time I thought
this a temporary gig, but no: I rise!

There's no end to your appetite for slaughter
or how you idolize the war reporter
who pulls his face into a sad expression
and flat-voiced says that on sober reflection
a civil war may not be altogether
the best thing for this place. And now the weather...


Terpsichore

You want to switch your gender? I'm fine
to help with that. You want to swap your limbs?
That's cool. Steel can be sexier than skin—
if you do it right. You can take me as the sign
the universe don't need you in the form
that you were born in. Take it from me: human's
defined by what the human does and "super"
is an epithet you add yourself. So warm

the cockles of your cybernetic pump...
or maybe you need less? Perhaps just jumping
higher than the other guy, despite your lack
of legs. We can do this! Just put your back
and prosthetics into it. You'll get the cheers
and if not, you can always be reengineered.


Thalia

Say what you will: I know the truth of you
and how you spin yourselves just makes me laugh
you say you are a moral man, pay half
your tax, are faithful to your wife—you screw
around only if out of town. I know
all those sharp edges on your soul, and grime
long ground into the fabric. All the time,
you skirt the crime tape round the portico;

the columns all look straight when you are just
a little off from centre and you must
therefore believe this is the place to stand;
believe you worked this out yourself. "Random"
is my critique of your fondest self beliefs,
but I love your lies, they are my light relief.

Urania

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two...
and so on. This is my new song: music, spheres,
steel gantries pointing through the atmosphere
at the nearer of the spinning rocks. I see
more futures in the heavens now. The signs
of yesteryear and claiming to see clearly
through crystals or in fight of birds, they weary
me. Come worship, when orbits all align,

with rocket stacks of high explosive fuel.
Sweat in your launch capsule. Try to keep cool,
as mission control applies the match. Or probe
from a safe distance. Fire robots from your globe
up into my domain. While far stars shine,
new worshipers approach more distant shrines.


Polyhymnia

Loading data. I’m loading all your data
for I am Polyhymnia and all
your songs sound well to me. We'll have no walls
between the disciplines or their creators.
Come here. I'm what you see when you look across
the quad and through some other department's window.
I'm what you find if you stare from what you know
towards what you do not. My tracks crisscross

your landscape of epiphanies and wide-
eyed wonder-strikes. The days you stepped aside,
and saw the world was not the thing you knew,
were down to me. I love things, once untrue,
now obvious. The whole damn thing's my faith,
I say: embrace your inner polymath...


Omnes

Immortal though the gods have always been,
they mostly now are gone. Eternity
went on and on and most lost heart. We now see
we always were the best. We were the queens
of continual creation, not just pulling
a universe out of a hat and taking
the afternoon off. Not blustering and faking
a lightning smite, but eternally fulfilling

a quota of electric inspiration
for every soul. We don’t control or ration,
we simply open floodgates of ideas
and drop you in the flow; but do not fear
we’ll hold your collective hand, live in your minds,
we are with you until the end of time.




2018-05-17

Squee!

Hallam London (slightly dated photo...
I'll try to take some new ones)
Very excited and probably should have mentioned this earlier but time, time, time...

Today Hallam London arrives in Sheffield and tomorrow he starts work with Dave Sanderson on an album of the songs we've been writing for the last 3 and a half years.

Hallam is a German Alternative Rock Musician who posted a message on a UK poetry forum about 4 years ago.  Nobody noticed.  Then after six months, the message was found and I hunted him down online, studied his previous work, found an address, mailed him, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Hallam's previous music/poetry project was to set some of Shakespeare's sonnets to music.  This one seems the most suitable to mention and I loved those and still have them in my playlist to this day.

Dave is a Sheffield-based music producer.  You can see people he's worked with via the link above, Reverend and the Makers and 65 Days of Static were the two I had immediately recognised.

And I am me, and over the next ten days or so we (OK, mostly they, my day job gets in the way) are going to record/mix/produce some of the songs into an actual album.  It is entirely possible you'll see me selling it before too long.

Exciting days, I know nearly four years ago I said to watch this space, but...

...watch this space.  In the meantime, here are some demo tracks:

2018-05-12

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Postscript...

Hi all,

Sorry I disappeared without a word before the end of NaPiWriMo.  The explanation is that I was just running a bit late, but still planning to do the last five days...  However life caught up with me and it never happened.  As a goodbye, I just want to post this which wasn't part of NaPoWriMo but which I created in the Nov/Dec/Jan just gone.  I'm rather proud of it and I hope it might encourage others to greater efforts in the areas of recording and audio editing their poems.

I entirely did this using the kindness of friends and freely available free tools, the total production costs were £0.00 ($0.00 at the current exchange rate...)  If anybody wants to discuss how it was done please contact me...

NaPoWriMo has, as ever, been glorious and thank you to all who created prompts, read poems, wrote poems, set up discussion groups etc etc and so on...

You are all stars!

Love,

Ian



New Muses for a Posthuman Age



(Original link with credits...)


2018-04-21

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day nineteen - corner case theologies



corner case theologies


there is no rule that all gods must make sense
there's believing and there is belief don't ask
what does your god need what has she meant
is there overlap can you achieve the task
how many gods strictly are required don't count
upon your fingers you're just supposed to know
you wait your life for a sermon on the mount
and then four come along and they don't show

any sort of agreement the rule is that you choose
it for yourself and some might say you made
it from whole cloth and what have you to lose
if this should be the case we all will shade
into the grey and empty place one day
I don't expect a god to light the way



2018-01-30

New Muses for a Posthuman Age



New Muses for a Posthuman Age








I follow a filk singer/songwriter called Dr Mary Crowell and on her album: Scattering Seeds on the Pomegranate Tour she has a song: Courting My Muse.  This track inspired me to write a sonnet sequence about how the Muses might be updated for the 21st century.

So far, so good, nothing unusual there, I've written sonnet sequences before...

...however when I came to record this, I had a problem.  Muses are female and plural, where I am male and singular.  So I hatched a plan.  I put out a call to various female poetry friends asking them whether they would like to be one of my Muses (I phrased it a little more carefully than that.)

To my delight friends signed up in sufficient numbers to be able to record all nine Muses, plus a group effort for my bonus "Omnes" sonnet that rounds things off at the end, and I was doubly delighted when Mary Crowell leapt at the opportunity to participate (bringing the whole thing full circle...)

I've spent some time editing these together with sound effects and music to complement the poems.  I also recorded myself narrating between the various goddesses in my guise as "The Mortal".

I have to say I'm very pleased with the result.  There's something uniquely satisfying in hearing talented voices read your work back to you, and it also is also educational, bringing out things in the poems that wouldn't be there in my reading.



Cast in order of appearance:

The Mortal
A man, like any other...
Ian Badcoe
This is my blog you are already reading...
Facebook
Twitter

Calliope
Goddess of Complex Computation and Difficult Projects
Natalie Shaw
Natalie Shaw is a poet who also works for the Government Digital Service. She is @redbaronski on Twitter and writes very occasionally on her blog: https://natalieshawpoems.wordpress.com/

Clio
OMG of Celebrity Gossip and Fan-fic
N Magennis
N Magennis is an author and artist. She lives in Argyll. https://nikkimagennis.com/

Euterpe
Rock Goddess
Amy Kinsman
Amy Kinsman is a poet and playwright from Manchester, England. As well as being the founding editor of Riggwelter Press, they are associate editor of Three Drops From A Cauldron and the host of the regular Sheffield-based open mic, Gorilla Poetry. Their debut poetry pamphlet & was joint winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize 2017 and is due out in April this year.
Facebook
Twitter: @manykinsmen

Erato
Goddess of Personal Development and Self Image
Juliet Anthill
Juliet Antill lives on the Isle of Mull with a SORN'd Fiat Punto and a cat called Alice. She has poems coming out in Magma and Prole this Spring.

Melpomene
Goddess of Heartbreaking News
Dr Mary Crowell
Dr. Mary Crowell is a geeky musician from north Alabama who is very active in the filk community. Her doctorate is in music composition, and she teaches music theory, composition, music appreciation, and piano at a local community college as well as at her home studio. Mary loves to write songs about mythology, gaming, coffee, beagles, and zombies. You can find her gaming album Acolytes of the Machine & Other Gaming Stories (2012) on Pandora Radio. Her latest album (funded by Kickstarter) is Scattering Seeds on the Pomegranate Tour (2017).
Patreon
http://marycrowell.com/

Terpsichore
Goddess of Body Modification and Bionics
Jenn Zed (Cyborg Edition)
Ms. Zed is an artist and writer who lives in Bath, England, with her cat. You can view her Portfolio at https://jennzedblog.wordpress.com/

Thallia
Goddess of Lies we tell Ourselves
Rosemary Badcoe
Rosemary Badcoe’s first collection, Drawing a Diagram, is available from Kelsay Books or directly from her. She is editor of the online poetry magazine Antiphon and has been published in a range of magazines.

Urania
Goddess of Space Shots and Surprisingly Distant Robots
Brenda Levy Tate
Brenda celebrates life in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, where she wanders outdoors at midnight, camera and tripod at the ready. She's especially drawn to astrophotography, so Urania is her particular Muse. She was a senior high drama and English teacher for endless years. Now she's a cat lady, poet, occasional singer and cheerful retiree.
Her book: Wingflash
brendatate.com

Polyhymnia
Goddess of Misc.
and Everything
and Holism
and Interdisciplinary Studies
and All That...
Jenn Zed
Biography as above

Credits read by
David Callin
David Callin lives on the Isle of Man.

Additional vocals
Rosemary Badcoe



Sound effects acknowledgements

All sound effects were downloaded from freesound.org under either The Creative Commons Attribution LicenseThe Creative Commons Public domain License, The Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License or The Creative Commons Sampling Plus License.  Changes were made such as fading-in and -out, tempo/frequency shifts, noise reduction etc...

The effects used can be found at:

Calliope:
https://freesound.org/people/Christopherderp/sounds/364531/
https://freesound.org/people/Erdie/sounds/27858/

https://freesound.org/people/brendan89/sounds/321552/
https://freesound.org/people/metrostock99/sounds/345078/
https://freesound.org/people/Snapper4298/sounds/183497/
https://freesound.org/people/Ali_6868/sounds/384911/
https://freesound.org/people/BigDaddyD/sounds/54829/
https://freesound.org/people/Cribbler/sounds/377083/
https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/349654/
https://freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/129745/
https://freesound.org/people/Sevin7/sounds/271039/

Clio:
https://freesound.org/people/jayfrosting/sounds/333402/
https://freesound.org/people/drotzruhn/sounds/405203/
https://freesound.org/people/btherad2000/sounds/328045/
https://freesound.org/people/satanicupsman/sounds/149140/
https://freesound.org/people/Pandos/sounds/362353/
https://freesound.org/people/jayfrosting/sounds/333384/
https://freesound.org/people/unchaz/sounds/150957/
https://freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/82361/
https://freesound.org/people/kukla/sounds/94036/
https://freesound.org/people/loudernoises/sounds/332808/
https://freesound.org/people/Adam_N/sounds/324892/

Euterpe:
https://freesound.org/people/luis_s/sounds/328971/
https://freesound.org/people/pitx/sounds/16188/
https://freesound.org/people/martian/sounds/83155/
https://freesound.org/people/safadancer/sounds/182015/

https://freesound.org/people/karolist/sounds/370934/
https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/404687/
https://freesound.org/people/abett/sounds/316703/

Erato:
https://freesound.org/people/11linda/sounds/393600/
https://freesound.org/people/LasciviousGork/sounds/168132/
https://freesound.org/people/acrober/sounds/86112/
https://freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/155256/
https://freesound.org/people/bulbastre/sounds/103991/
https://freesound.org/people/golosiy/sounds/107932/
https://freesound.org/people/safadancer/sounds/182015/
https://freesound.org/people/safadancer/sounds/182018/
https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/195286/
https://freesound.org/people/btherad2000/sounds/328045/

Melpomene:
https://freesound.org/people/pgi/sounds/212606/
https://freesound.org/people/pgi/sounds/212600/
https://freesound.org/people/gkillhour/sounds/267222/
https://freesound.org/people/FillMat/sounds/384401/
https://freesound.org/people/pushkin/sounds/241590/
https://freesound.org/people/visions68/sounds/351333/
https://freesound.org/people/copyc4t/sounds/218372/
https://freesound.org/people/maycuddlepie/sounds/330298/

Terpsichore:
https://freesound.org/people/sevenbsb/sounds/349398/
https://freesound.org/people/FlatHill/sounds/324756/
https://freesound.org/people/stomachache/sounds/274516/
https://freesound.org/people/Vosvoy/sounds/139026/
https://freesound.org/people/botha9johann/sounds/326049/
https://freesound.org/people/SpiceProgram/sounds/365034/
https://freesound.org/people/chinpen/sounds/381959/
https://freesound.org/people/renatalmar/sounds/264981/
https://freesound.org/people/Reitanna/sounds/344001/
https://freesound.org/people/Hybrid_V/sounds/321215/

Thalia:
https://freesound.org/people/toam/sounds/198625/
https://freesound.org/people/esperar/sounds/170781/
https://freesound.org/people/Vosvoy/sounds/139026/
https://freesound.org/people/DJames619/sounds/389247/
https://freesound.org/people/OldSchool_/sounds/408768/
https://freesound.org/people/fisu/sounds/350619/
https://freesound.org/people/pyro13djt/sounds/337997/
https://freesound.org/people/kiddpark/sounds/201159/
https://freesound.org/people/benjaminharveydesign/sounds/366099/
https://freesound.org/people/f_ilippo/sounds/59194/

Urania:
https://freesound.org/people/the_very_Real_Horst/sounds/223419/
https://freesound.org/people/Corsica_S/sounds/52752/
https://freesound.org/people/Oddworld/sounds/125105/
https://freesound.org/people/Wesselorg/sounds/408442/
https://freesound.org/people/digifishmusic/sounds/54190/
https://freesound.org/people/jppi_Stu/sounds/70986/
https://freesound.org/people/primeval_polypod/sounds/158894/

Polyhymnia:
https://freesound.org/people/chipfork/sounds/50087/
https://freesound.org/people/DCPoke/sounds/387978/
https://freesound.org/people/ProjectsU012/sounds/334685/
https://freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/160469/
https://freesound.org/people/MrAuralization/sounds/259292/
https://freesound.org/people/are16ocean/sounds/117597/

Omnes:
https://freesound.org/people/benjaminharveydesign/sounds/315918/
https://freesound.org/people/harrybates01/sounds/254364/
https://freesound.org/people/thegreatperson/sounds/210793/
https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/343130/
https://freesound.org/people/mike_stranks/sounds/341604/
https://freesound.org/people/lebcraftlp/sounds/243627/
https://freesound.org/people/parnellij/sounds/74892/
https://freesound.org/people/Parasonya/sounds/394921/
https://freesound.org/people/ryansnook/sounds/110111/

2018-01-29

New Muses, more details...



Possibly I was being a touch too much of a tease in my last post.

What I've done is written a sequence of ten sonnets: nine in the voices of a single Muse, but upgraded for the 21st century; and the tenth from all nine.

Then I found a group of nine like-minded individualsyou may find it disturbing that I can so easily find nine like-minded individualsgot them to perform the individual sonnets, and then mixed the performances together with some narration and a selection of supporting sound effects.

It has been a most inspiring experience.  Hearing such a variety of voices performing my words has shown me things about the poems that I would not have heard had I merely recorded them myself, and the process of editing and adding sound effects to each recording has had me concentrating on phrases, individual words, or sometimes just the space between a pair of words.

It is nearly ready for release now.  I just need to dot some "i"s and double-cross some senior priests...




2017-09-04

Sept 4th - Coming apart

A sonnet on the subject of: "quit", "exit", "farewell", "give up", "depart", "parting", "drop out", "get out", "go out", "go away", "leave behind", "throw in", "chuck up the sponge", "leave of absence", "leave-taking", "go forth", "throw in the towel"...

...and also: "keep", "preclude", "forbid", "forestall".



Coming apart


They say, they say, they say you've gone away
and that there's nothing I can do or tell
to change the fact of absence.  I shall not play
this game by other people's rules, not dwell
upon impossibility.  There must
be something, somehow that a man can do
and I'm the one to do this.  I need to trust
in me; to find what route your 'plane takes through

the travails of whateverness. I shall pin
a patch to physics to let me fold the sky;
I'll bowl a curve-ball; find the true McGuffin;
whatever is the exit strategy
to let me say exit's not happening.
Please take my callI can't see why you'd leave.



2017-06-07

The guide to nine utopias - Afterwords

The guide to nine utopias


...Afterwords

There is no beach upon the beach--the wind
shifts scuds of pale dry grains across the waves
of rippled, damper sand. The same breeze finds
a dry crab shell and drifts grit in its caves.
It's often little happens here all week,
unless you count the seabirds' yaw and dive.
Their daily round of being alive and eking
birdness from the strip between the tides.

Of course it is all shellfish now and bits
of misc dead ocean denizens. It sits
well with the flock as none are old enough
to recollect the days of richer stuff:
the sandwich halves and ice cream cones. The bladderwrack
trims no beach now; the waves erase no sandal tracks.







Or if you want to hear the whole thing...





2017-06-04

The guide to nine utopias - IX - Traditional

The guide to nine utopias


IX -- Traditional

Lisa is embarrassed; she sat down on
the snide receptionist who was hunting
for something dropped upon the floor, on brown
commercial carpeting. He was affronted,
but, I assured her, he was sharply styled
with all chrome limbs and fuzzy dark-blue skin
quite like the furniture. He finds our file.
We watch the chairs until the doctor's in.

Conventional, the doctor's body. Standard
for human, but with extra eyes and hands
--all doctors love that stuff. He's sad. He thinks
we make a comely pair: my gills, her wings...
but says our custom genes aren't guaranteed
to do the right thing if we want to breed.








2017-06-01

The guide to nine utopias - VIII - Glorious

The guide to nine utopias


VIII -- Glorious

World and other wars, bringing you them all:
Carnage Coverage Extreme--all the armies
you support; field marshal to corporal;
winning, losing, lying in smithereens--
just watch this space to get into the guts
of every battle. Later in the program:
two privates try to storm this simple hut
without great care. I won't spoil it, but... BANG!

--is a fair summary. Also, coming up: wounds
in Scar of the Week, and have you found
the mystery munition yet? Now, watch
this clip where our boys neatly snatch
two likely lads, but only one can go
through to tonight's Interrogation Show!







2017-05-29

The guide to nine utopias - VII - Cultural

The guide to nine utopias


VII -- Cultural

My virtuality is on the blink
again. Could you be a darling and pop round?
I was at the Mardi Gras with Ken, my drink
blipped off and then the whole scene crashed. I found
this gruesome room: a peeled-paint breeze-block wall,
bare concrete floor, a tiny, grimy window
and also I was naked, not as tall
as I prefer--and not to mention: old,

and Kenneth's dead. You'd love to help your Ma,
and bring your tools tomorrow? You're a star.
I'm sure it's just that same projector node.
Can you swap it, it tends to overload?
Great! Why I get this dump I'll never know--
well yes, I'm sure it's real, but even so...







2017-05-26

The guide to nine utopias - VI - Technological



The guide to nine utopias


VI -- Technological

PROTOCOL HELLO from all of us
at central-server-slash-breakfast-dot-show:
it's T-equals-zero. PROTOCOL NEWS: fuss
in binary-heart upgrade fiasco
spreads to top organ-manufacturer
FolkTech whose spokesman Bernard Ninety-Three
said, in a prepared statement, that fracture
in love-compatible machinery

was common even in the olden-days.
For those of you with two, or three, or eight
true loves the message is: keep cool; don't call,
but reschedule your dates to keep them all
apart; and don't use 'auto' near a singles' bar.
PROTOCOL NEXT: upgrade secrets of the stars...







2017-05-23

The guide to nine utopias - V - Emotional

The guide to nine utopias


V -- Emotional

My therapist's receptionist's name label
says: Hi, my other self is Kristin,
and I am Jane.
She's cataleptic; unable
to show that she's at home--no analyst in
the place either. I scratch my appointment
from in her book and go to look for group
up on the seventh floor. It's poignant
how I now recognise each different troupe

of troubled patients from the varied wails
that leak out of their room. Such sordid tales
I've told and heard behind these doors. Touching
ones as well of course but, oddly, I clutch
the most disturbing ones--collect them. Sad
but I'm well adjusted to the slightly mad.







2017-05-20

The guide to nine utopias - IV - Economic

The guide to nine utopias


IV -- Economic

A small minority of customers
have never taken up a special offer
of any sort. Not even when preferred
and given one-time ultimate no-bother
saving packs
at seventy-five percent
off the normal commission-free list price.
I mean, is this nice? I try not to resent
their uncooperativity. We've spiced

the deals as far as we're allowed. I'm proud
of our talents, but we're under a cloud
here; quotas are at risk. It is my life:
the science and art of sales. My lovely wife
won't hear the word "failure". We are undone,
so... in your sample case you'll find a gun...







2017-05-17

The guide to nine utopias - III - Secure

The guide to nine utopias


III -- Secure

Police Surveillance Bureau Info Desk--
it is a long queue, isn't it? No surprise.
Why are you here then?... Yes, I think it's best
to let them know. They will find out, it's wise
to fill the forms in first--it's the camera
I'm here about. The one in our bedroom.
It didn't fuss my first wife--that was Anna--
but Julie hates it, says that when it zooms

it whines. I think it must be getting old.
It puts her off. My love-life's growing cold, so
I wondered if the cops could be persuaded
to let me pay for it to be upgraded...
Ah! Not long now, we'll reach the desk quite soon,
now that old guy's been dragged off by the goons.







2017-05-15

The guide to nine utopias - II - Fast

The guide to nine utopias


II -- Fast

The traffic for your area: I'm Dan
Trailer--and with values falling on the roads
the slump extends its bite. This minivan
on the M4, which two years back exploded
to upwards of a million pounds is priced,
today, at half that sum--and it's not selling.
For young professionals, my best advice
is stay right where you are: your car's a dwelling...

of course you'd like to be nearer the city
but cars don't move and negative equity
means neither do you. If you want a family
saloon, forget that dream, keep your money
for a better year.--Now, on the wackier side:
we've found more film from when folk used to drive.







2017-05-12

The guide to nine utopias - I - Gastronomic

The guide to nine utopias


I -- Gastronomic

Stimpson's Authentic Fish-Flavoured Food Bricks
in FreshSeal packaging to keep the zing
for every mouthwatering bite. The pick
of every family meal, and just the thing
in your husband's government-issue lunchpack.
Or... for the under-prole whose budget's smaller,
try Stimpson's Value Algal Protein Stacks--
in Classic Crab-Effect, or New Trawlermen's

Choice. Perfect for soaking up dole-board gruel
or National Nutrient paste, and fuel
for long days on the work-farm shovelling
dung. These foodstuffs of the future lack nothing,
bring great economy, and we are proud
to provide the highest food content allowed!







2017-05-11

The Guide to Nine Utopias - introduction

The Guide to Nine Utopias - introduction


I have decided to bite the bullet and put up my second most ambitious ever poem...

This is a sequence of ten sonnets entitled The guide to nine utopias.  Ten sonnets is far too many to dump on you all in one monstrous post, so I am going to serialise them: a sonnets every three days of so, right up to the eve of the UK general election.  After that it will be only too obvious what sort of Utopia we've ended up with...

The idea for this sprang into existence, fully formed, while I was camping with my 60 or 70 of my relatives in 2011.  My relatives have nothing to do with this poem as they are far more utopian than the topics covered here.

This is going to be, of course, dystopian as you may be able to tell from my little logo at the top right.  Do not think I'm a pessimist or anti-progress person, however.  I am quite the reverse, fully believing in progress and technology and equality and liberation and all that goes with those things.  My message is more subtle and I'm going to build on a point I come back to over and over:


Many people are naive and overconfident.


For example...  it is very easy to take the exact Lego bricks needed for a utopia, and build a world-class dystopia from them.  The Universe is a complex and subtle place, and generally speaking our leaders are simple and unsubtle.  This wouldn't matter if they knew they needed smarter people to advise them, but usually they don't.  Our leaders really should be followed by a little man who, like for a Roman general, has the job of continually whispering "Remember the Dunning-Kruger effect" in their ears.

However we don't have that, so yes: our leaders really are idiots and no: it isn't an illusion caused by us not seeing all the difficulties they face.  I mean sure, that illusion exists, but additionally they are idiots.  The best thing you can do as a member of the electorate is work steadily and ingeniously to ram the facts of their incompetence into their faces as often and as thoroughly as possible...

Be that as it may, we had some poetry going on here earlier, or rather we're going to in a day or two...  Watch this space.  As I am having to future-schedule the episodes, I may not be sharing them as widely as I usually do.  So if you want in I recommend liking my @IanBadcoePoetry Facebook page where every one of them will be posted automatically, via the power of the internet.

2017-04-29

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 25th - Antikythera and other mechanisms

Not really following any prompt here, except there was a prompt about "space" which prompted me (sic) to look through my notes for various terms and something I saw there reminded me I intended to write this.

This was all written in two sessions today, with minimal editing, so it's a bit "first draft" please forgive any built-in insanities.

I have used few Greek names and terms, not many.  I initially tried to get authentic ancient words but in the end decided the main thing I needed was two broadly suitable names.

The Antikythera Mechanism is this.  There is a theory that the ship that was wrecked may have been carrying loot from Rhodes to Rome for use in a triumphal parade staged by Julius Caesar.  I tried matching up the dates to see if that works.  It isn't clear it does, but I've incorporated that into the set-up anyway :-)  I've arbitrarily picked the time when Julius was a consul, there's no actual reason to think this true but I had to give him some title...

I do not speak Greek, especially not ancient Greek, so I have no reason to show off with it.  If I did I might have used some epigram such as:

Είναι εύκολο να ακούγεται έξυπνος σε ξένες γλώσσες

(thank you Google Translate).  Obviously I would never do that...




Antikythera, and other mechanisms


Captain Τιμόν(*) views the device

Caesar has ordered strictly, that no one turns
the handle
the technikós(***) Αλέκος(**)
staggers slightly in the swell, his hand upon
the opened cratenobody is to see
events from future time laid out.  The Gods
alone know this by right and the consul shows
due deference and decrees that no-one use
this thing save him.
  Much later when the man
was drunk, the whole crew heard him often boast
he had no choice but frequently to wind
the dials back to a century before
his birth and forward again up to today.
He claimed this as the only way to see
the mechanism hadn't suffered hurt.

(*-Timon; **-Alekos; ***-technician, modern Greek, I needed a plausibly old term but I also needed to imply the modern meaning, so this is a compromise...)


Αλέκος explains the dials

Upon this side are those things of the Earth:
above, progression of the months and years
laid out in spiral form, and more than that:
the festivals and Games at Athens,
Olympia and Rhodes.  Now lower down
another spiral shows eclipses: Sun
and Moon; dancing in the sky.  I'll turn
it round.  This side is for the heavens,
Gods, their wanderings across the night.

The Moon, its place in things, the dark and bright
phases, the motion of the Sun, through houses
of the Zodiac, and far beyond it all

fixed constellations rise and fall, throughout the year.


The sea captain's dream

Captain Τιμόν rests uneasy, his salt
and water blood uncalm, the mechanism
in his hold offers no direct harm, but a man
who's watched the heavens forty years can't
simply
sleep comfortable with ideas of gears
outside the sky.  The calendars that form
his life are woven from much softer things
the winds round certain islands, his son, his wife
and festivals that come because the town
gather; not because some metal pointer pins
them to a dial.  He turns in bed, uneasy.

Part of him knows the wind has changed;
within his dream the same unease: islands that move,
brass spins beneath the waves, a giant hand winding...


Unseasonable

The wind has changed.  The sea grows mad.  The captain
invokes Poseidon beneath his breath and grabs
the steering oar himself.  Beneath the deck
the oarsmen also pray, but Αλέκος
turns from the raging sea and guards instead
the precious crate.  Even technicians pray
but to what spirits, Gods or fates he's kept
his peace
part of the artisan's secrets
but whatever powers they are fail him.  Down
come the sails, and the oarsmen struggle more.  The lea
of any shore might save their skins. 
Τιμόν
tries first for Kythira but as fear grows
turns instead for tiny Aigila(*).  He knows
he's got there only when they hit the rocks.

(* transliteration of ancient name of Antikythera)


The technician's dream

Αλέκος sleeps so soundly when they pull
him from the sea, that all believe he'll die.
They try to keep him warm, burn sage leaves, ply
the fates with secret gestures, muttered words
they've heard the shepherds using for sick lambs.

This is no sheep, nor yet a man: technikós
who holds construction in his hands.  So deep
his charge has drowned, in sleep it takes him down

and he sees, unsurprised, a new dial: sea level
clearly marked.  The needle turns as all grows dark
around it.  In his heightened state he notices
also for the first time another gauge
"πολιτισμός", now well into decline.
He wonders for how long the dark will last,

when everything he knows has passed, how long
before technicians once again will build
machines to map the heavens?  How long until
they pull a lump of metal from the waves?

(* "πολιτισμός" - politismos: civilisation, modern Greek again...)




2017-04-26

NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 21st - So, I said

The prompt here was a poem with overheard speech in it.

Sonnet again.  It is my default setting when I do a form.

Interestingly I have known people like this, not diplomats, but who use rudeness as a form of affection, and who even use it to test new acquaintances if anyone takes offence: well you don't want the effort of people that difficult anyway...



So, I said


So I said: you are a diplomat, are you?
Because I had by chance happened to hear
him call the Finish Attaché a weird-
arsed hybrid of a reindeer and a shrew
and he said: I'll tell you, since we have a while.
My brand of statecraft is my very own
and amongst the cognoscenti I'm well known
for slandering my best friends with a smile


and I can never change because all like
me how I am.  I can't be too correct,
except... just sometimes when I want to crack
their composure, well then I need to go icily
polite -- never fails.  I know he'll be a chum
'cos as he went he said I was plain dumb.