The Childhood of Bertrand Russell

I cannot grieve for newly shattered crockery

nor shed a tear for shards of splintered glass.

To simulate distress were hollow mockery.

They are of dust. Once more to dust they pass.

How wise your words, my son, for every platter,

composed of ordered particles of dust,

assumes again the natural state of matter,

and entropy increases, as it must.

Thropping

The planets are irrelevant. We're talking about life,

a euphemism for the road to death.

You know it when it chokes you or when someone plants a knife

between your epiglottis and your breath.

It doesn't hide in crystals or in interstellar space.

It isn't made of Plasticine or lead.

I met a guy who reckoned we were warts on heaven's face

until he took up tapestry instead.

They put him in a Lancia (the tumbrils were employed

in lending colour to a flagging verse)

and drove him to Croatia (I temporarily toyed

with Macedonia, but the metre's worse).

We'll leave him there. We're talking about life. Before you go

concluding I've got nothing more to say,

I'll wax anthropomorphic and endeavour to bestow

its qualities on something everyday -

The moon will do. I asked it, "What's it like to live alone

reflecting since the days of Genesis?"

It didn't say, "Don't ask me, I'm a lifeless lump of stone".

It would've, but it couldn't, 'cause it is.

Jellyfish

You poked me with your naked toe and said "Is that alive?
We'd better chuck it back into the sea."
A kindly thought, if crudely phrased, but I will not survive
this drying sun - so listen, please, to me.

Your bony frame and raspish skin, your stony teeth and nails
are so much evolution gone astray.
We jellyfish need none of these - our frills and fronds and flails
are carried on the ocean's loving sway.

Come, join us in the element where life was meant to be!
Reject the jagged baggage in your train,
and learn to see your essence as a jelly, just like me -
for what is humankind but human brain?

The Consequential Prophet

I'm the Consequential Prophet and my following is growing.
When the train's already rolling I can tell you where it's going.
When the bomb's already falling I can tell you who's to die -
I can tell you how and when but never why.
 
I'm the Consequential Prophet, I'm a lover of despair.
I manipulate depression. It's the only suit I wear
but I've made it quite the fashion and you'll love it to the hilt
for it's carded, spun and woven out of guilt.
 
Not for me a Father's mansion or a palace in the sky.
I'm your here and now disaster man. Forget the by and by.
When you're truly my disciples you will know, for you will feel
only agony is real, real, real.
   
I'm the Consequential Prophet, I'm a wallower in gloom,
I'm a peddler of despondency, a worshipper of doom
and I have to keep you miserable. I mustn't let you see
if you ever learn to laugh you'll laugh at me.

The Last Post

It was raining in the hall
and the spider on the wall
was the first to feel that something wasn't right,
grimly lacing silken doom
through the luminescent gloom,
silent witness to a pitiable sight.

He was grey and he was old.
He was withered. He was cold.
He was moving so you knew he was alive.
As his blood began to freeze
fever dropped him to his knees -
still he scraped his aching carcass up the drive.

Fading quickly, ever stoic,
final effort so heroic,
straining high, he squeezed a letter through your door.
He had given of his best,
now his faithful heart would rest.
He was dead before the letter hit the floor.

You had little time to spare
but you couldn't leave him there
so you hung him up to dry, with yellow twine
deftly knotted at the throat,
as you opened up the note -
"Happy birthday to my darling Clementine".