Welcome to GeoVerse!

Posted on April 15, 2011 by GJ

This is a collection of original poems which began with some about geology, which is why it’s called Geoverse; but there are now poems on all sorts of things – life, the universe, and (almost) everything. Click ‘About the author’ (above) to find out who wrote them . . .
To meet all the poems, most recent first, scroll down this page. When you reach the bottom, just click the ‘Older posts’ arrow to see more, and so on.
To find a list of poems on a particular subject, use the Index tab (above), or enter a term in the Search box (below right) , or click a Topic (on the right).
I  hope you find something you like! Gordon Judge (geoverse@hotmail.co.uk)

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Getting stuck in

Posted on January 13, 2012 by GJ

Proposals submitted by the UK Penetrator Consortium (led by a UCL group at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory) under the ESA Cosmic Vision program envisage half-metre-long “micro-penetrators” being deployed from orbiters and directed at around 300 m/s straight down into the top few metres of the surface of unsuspecting Solar System bodies. They have included “MoonLITE”, in which interesting parts of our own Moon would be impacted by four penetrators, and later ideas for gathering data from moons of Saturn and Jupiter. At the moment, though, they’re still just proposals . . .

Look out, Enceladus! Look out on Titan!,
Look out, the Moon’s old regolith dust!
They’re planning to fire a whopping great bullet
To penetrate into your unwary crust.

Europa, as well, is a possible target –
The Jovian moon with a cold icy shell
Whose surface has cracks, caused by huge tidal forces,
Through which might leak water – organics as well?

“Is it life, Jim, but not as we know it, perhaps?”
Is one question they really would like to get solved:
Not Little Green Men; but molecules instead –
Indicators that life of some sort has evolved.

On the Moon, they’d be looking for evidence of water,
Especially in craters lying close its poles,
And probing the far side’s untested geology
With their sleek high-velocity ESA moles.

But maybe the whole thing is not going to happen –
Will it lie dormant, along with MoonLITE?
Can Europe support such a grand ‘Cosmic Vision’
When government cash is so terribly tight?

[Image: www.filmschoolrejects.com]
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Gibbs Dentifrice

Posted on January 5, 2012 by GJ

This was a solid pink block of pink stuff in a tin which had to be vigorously scrubbed with a rotary action of the toothbrush so that the foam produced would transfer to the bristles. It seemed to last for ever. Children were warned that ‘Dragon Decay’ would attack your ‘Ivory Castles’ if you didn’t use it. (Before my time, the Dragon had been a Giant; but whatever he was, he managed to breach Mr Gibbs’s defences without too much trouble.)

“It’s Gibbs Dentifrice,” my parents would say.
“It’s the best way we know of keeping at bay
The terrible spectre of Dragon Decay.
You must brush your teeth well, at least three times a day.”

I expect you remember. It came in a tin
Containing a block of bright pink stuff within
Which you’d scrub with your toothbrush, and then you’d begin
To shine up your gnashers for a sparkling grin.

More fun, though, was toothpaste, in tubes you could squeeeeeze
And squirt out a mint flavoured sausage with ease;
And red, white and blue stripes appeared by degrees!
But I still feel nostalgic for Gibbs Dentifrice . . .

[Image: http://kertaskuno.blogspot.com]
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It’s Christmas in Horsham

Posted on December 14, 2011 by GJ

It’s Christmas 2011, and there’s a recession on. In Horsham, the King’s Head is still closed, and budgets are having to be cut, yet the town’s restaurant count keeps rising.

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
There’s room at the inn,
But it’s still boarded up
So you cannot get in.

It’s Christmas in Horsham
With restaurants galore!
(If money’s so tight,
Why’re they opening more?)

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
You can shop till you drop;
But Broadbridge Heath Leisure
Is faced with the chop.

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
Our young folk won’t cheer,
For their Youth Clubs are threatened
With closure next year.

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
Unemployment’s so high
That it’s tough for our NEETs,
Whatever they try.

The recession is biting,
The future’s unclear
But it’s Christmas in Horsham,
So, er, be of good cheer . . .

[Photo of The Causeway: www.nowpublic.com]
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Trolleyhogs

Posted on December 14, 2011 by GJ

A trolleyhog is a sub-species of supermarket shopper which has acquired an evolutionary advantage by impeding the hunting-gathering activities of others.

Trolleyhogs are trouble: they are crafty, they have guile,
And they’ll park their laden trolley in the supermarket aisle
Not parallel, but crosswise, so blocking off your route
As they dither over vegetables and dally round the fruit.

Trolleyhogs are clever: they can sense, from far away,
The place they should be stationed to cause the most delay.
Where aisles are at their narrowest, that’s where they’ll meet a friend
And talk about the weather. Cor, it drives you round the bend!

Trolleyhogs aren’t focussed, they’re in a dreamlike state
Until you want to pass them, when their trolley will rotate
As they spot the very thing they didn’t know they needed.
They’ll then do all they can to ensure your way’s impeded.

Trolleyhogs will strike when nobody expects it
And drive all other shoppers in frustration to the exit –
Survival of the fittest! Red in tooth and claw,
A trolleyhog attack will clear the busiest store.

But I have a wicked wheeze to thwart their evil plan
Of blocking shoppers’ movements by whatever means they can.
I’ll grab the mike in Sainsbury’s: “In Tesco’s,” I will shout,
“The aisles are flowing freely and there’s room to move about!”

They simply can’t resist an aisle that’s blockage-free:
It’s like a red rag to a bull, or nectar to a bee.
They’ll turn around and hurry to the exit without stopping,
And go and clog up Tesco’s – then I can do my shopping!

(Actually, of course, by this time a Sainsbury security person would have appeared and offered to do something interesting with my own trolley and my neck. I’d claim poetic licence, but I doubt it would work.)

Photo: The Guardian
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The milkman’s horse

Posted on December 1, 2011 by GJ

Christmas nostalgia in a pint bottle (and they are still pints!).

I remember the milkman’s horse.
It would stop outside our gate
While the milkman put its nosebag on
And I wondered what it ate.

My Dad would thank the milkman’s horse
For he would often find
A bucketful of free manure
The horse had left behind.

How times have changed! No milkman’s horse,
No nosebag, no manure.
Electric floats, though smooth and quiet
Don’t have the same allure.

But the milk they bring is just as good.
Nostalgic, me? No fear!
So thank you, milkmen everywhere –
Happy Christmas and New Year!

[Photo: That Woman's Weblog]
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Thirty days hath September

Posted on November 9, 2011 by GJ

This ancient rhyme is good for working out how many days there are in each month. Assuming, of course, that you can remember the rhyme itself . . .

Thirty days hath September*,
Some others, and maybe November.
Quite a few have thirty-one –
But which, I can’t remember.

* Just to confuse matters further, a 15th century manuscript (Harley 2341) in the British Library has November here!

[Image: davidbrim.org]
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Solar voices

Posted on November 4, 2011 by GJ

These things have been appearing on more and more roofs just lately, probably driven by a generous financial incentive from Her Majesty’s Government (oh, and people’s concerns about climate change, of course). They’re supposed to be silent, but listen carefully . . .

We are your solar panels, monocrystalline, aloof.
We soak up all the sunshine that irradiates your roof
Those clouds are not a problem: they still let through radiation*
Which we export to the National Grid to power up the nation.

We’re bolted to the rafters and we’re here for years to come,
Exposed to all the elements, but we will not succumb.
We don’t mind rain, especially when our fronts have got all mucky –
It washes off the pigeon poo as well, if we are lucky.

At night we’re quite redundant, for the stars are just too weak;
And even when the moon is full, it’s empty, so to speak.
But when the Sun wakes up again, he sends us back to work,
We’ve got no choice, he is our boss and will not let us shirk.

So what do we get out of it? A share of what we earn you?
Some hope! We get the feeling that our problems don’t concern you.
This boredom and monotony will send us round the bend –
The novelty’s worn off now. When will it ever end?

The Feed-in Tariff income’s yours, but what’s in it for us?
Not a lot, it seems; but as we can’t kick up a fuss
We’ll have to make the best of things: security, the view,
Birdwatching and stargazing – well, there’s nothing else to do . . .

* True, but any cloud seriously reduces the amount!

[Photo: Pennaf Housing Group]
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Homo granddadus

Posted on October 14, 2011 by GJ

This little-recognised species, now known to be important in passing on experience, ideas and inventions to succeeding generations, did not exist during the Palaeolithic, when early humans lived and hunted in small groups and repeated climate changes forced them to move and adapt. Lives were short and blue-sky thinking was not the first priority for most people. But here, a young, brighter-than-average homo heidelbergensis describes how he once gave it a go:

“Life in the Stone Age is brutish and short.
Our hunting techniques haven’t changed:
Our elders die young, so we youngsters aren’t taught
New techniques, and ideas aren’t exchanged.

“This week, we men slaughtered a mammoth or two.
Our adrenaline makes us feel brave,
But we’re knackered to bits by the time that we’re through
And we’ve lugged back its parts to our cave.

“So I started to think, with this big brain of mine:
If I rig bits of wood, hinged on pegs
To a platform and work them, back-and-forth, with some twine,
I could drive it around – they’d be ‘legs’ . . .

“Then mammoth retrieval would just be a doddle.
My platform on legs would work hard,
And, thanks to the grey matter inside my noddle,
I’d have time – I could be the tribe’s bard!

“But Granny had noticed me thinking. She said:
‘I have a solution, I feel.
Your Granddad invented . . . . . . . . .  .’ And then she dropped dead.”
Thus, the world was deprived of the wheel!

Eventually, homo granddadus evolved.
Living longer in better conditions,
He could pass on his wisdom, so problems got solved . . .
And that’s how the wheel got invented!

[Images: www.nerdbeach.com; out-think.blogspot.com]
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Jenny Bare Legs

Posted on September 30, 2011 by GJ

This is the name of a field on Chesworth Farm, near Horsham in Sussex. It might, of course, have been named after a previous owner; but I talked about it to Old MacDonald (who had a farm) and he suggested it could be a corruption of ‘bare lag’, meaning an unproductive field . . .

Was Jenny Bare Legs in her field, I should like to know?
“No, she wasn’t! Nor revealed was ankle, knee or toe.”
What, no bare leg here? No bare leg there?
“No, a lag, ’twas a lag;
Everywhere a bare lag!
Jenny Bare Lags, that’s this field, a field where things don’t grow!”

[Photo: Wikimedia Commons]
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Hell’s Kitchen

Posted on September 24, 2011 by GJ

You can get oil from organic-rich shales, such as those in Dorset’s Kimmeridge Clay Formation, but only if they have previously subsided deep enough (several kilometres) below overlying sediments to reach temperatures in the region of 100°C – what Professor Richard Selley of Imperial College calls “Hells Kitchen”.

Pack-a-clay, pack-a-clay, Jurassic man*,
With organic remains as full as you can.
Compress it and cook it at one hundred C
Deep down in Hell’s Kitchen – and then tell BP!

* There were, of course, no men around in the Jurassic, except those with poetic licence.
[Photo: localbreakingnews.blogspot.com]
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How St. George lost his Land

Posted on September 21, 2011 by GJ

St. George’s Land refers to the western end of what is now known as the Wales-London-Brabant Massif, a band of ancient rocks, whose crystalline arrangements were altered by heat and pressure in earlier stages of the Earth’s tectonic history. In the UK, the massif is now buried deeply beneath later sediments; but such seismic activity as there is in the region seems to cluster around its edges . . .

St. George’s land once stood up proud
In old Dinantian times1,
An island in a shallow sea
With equatorial climes2.

The island’s ancient basement rocks
Resisted being drowned,
While Carboniferous Limestones
Were laid down all around.

St. George grew overconfident
Of his Dinantian mapping;
And pride, they say, precedes a fall –
Our Saint was soon caught napping.

Gondwana3, that land-grabbing thug,
Was moving north apace;
It squeezed the Rheic Ocean4 dry
And captured George’s place.

Poor George – disheartened and depressed –
Subsided and was gone,
Part of Pangaea’s basement now.
And yet, St. George lives on . . .

For round the margins of his Land,
His seismic spirit grumbles:
He last was felt in Lincolnshire5
As subterranean rumbles.

1. They were part of the early Carboniferous Period, around 340 million years ago (give or take 20 million years or so).
2. That’s because the area of crust on which St. George’s Land stood, while being dragged northwards by the Earth’s churning mantle, was then close to the Equator.
3. This was a huge single ancient continent which incorporated most of today’s southern hemisphere land masses.
4. This ancient ocean, between Gondwana and the Rest of the World, first appeared during the Cambrian Period (some 500-odd million years ago) but disappeared as Gondwana’s progress northwards created a new, single continent, Pangaea.
5. For ten seconds, just after midnight on 27 February 2008, registering 5.4 on Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg’s ‘Richter’ scale, with nine aftershocks over the following weeks (Wikipedia).
[Images: www.tonybaldry.co.uk; Wikipedia]
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The way of a worm

Posted on September 7, 2011 by GJ

A new vocabulary is needed to describe how legless land creatures move. Worms, for example . . .

I have thought up a special new term
To describe how the common earthworm
Smoothly slithers around
All over the ground.
It’s “wigglysquigglysquirm”.

A slithery, slippery worm,
As every child can confirm,
Has no legs, toes or feet
And is quite incomplete
Without wigglysquigglysquirm.

To experience the way of a worm,
With your arm held quite steady and firm
Put a worm on your hand –
Then you’ll soon understand
How to wigglysquigglysquirm!

[Photos: www.edupic.net; Tim Eisele (somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com)]
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Isaac Newton

Posted on August 18, 2011 by GJ

Isaac Newton (1642–1727), born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, did well at school in Grantham and went on to Cambridge University in 1661 with a keen interest in philosophy and mathematics. Shortly after getting his degree, the university closed as a precaution against the spread of the Great Plague. Newton spent two productive years at his home in Woolsthorpe before returning to Cambridge in 1667. He wrote reams on a wide range of subjects, invented the reflecting telescope that still bears his name, became a Professor of Mathematics, a Member of Parliament and the Master of the Royal Mint. On a personal level, I owe it to his fertile brain that I was able to find employment in interesting areas of engineering.

Isaac Newton of Woolsthorpe was bright:
With a prism he split the Sun’s light
Into colours. And then,
With a prism again,
He combined them once more – and made white!

Space, he believed, was a frame
And time for all folk was the same;
The two were distinct,
And not interlinked
As ‘space-time’, as Einstein would claim.

It was Newton’s keen mental resources
That put right our thinking on forces:
His three laws of motion
Were a brilliant new notion
For working out planetary courses.

What was it, he wondered, gave traction
To the apple whose legendary action
Raised questions profound
By its fall to the ground?
It was gravity’s fatal attraction.

And in maths he had clever ideas,
But wouldn’t divulge them for years.
(He thought there’d be ructions
If he published his ‘fluxions’
And feared the contempt of his peers.)

Inventor, Mint Master, MP:
Isaac Newton would tackle all three,
Plus religion and science
(An unholy alliance!),
And that ancient pursuit, alchemy.

It’s to Newton I owe my career
As a research-inclined engineer.
When I used his equations,
On many occasions
I could sense the great man hovering near . . .

[Image: www.newton.ac.uk]
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Going up to London

Posted on August 15, 2011 by GJ

In which certain rather young people are  shown some of the sights. (The direction of London is typically ‘up’ to folk who live south of the Thames; please feel free to substitute ‘down’ if it better reflects your own geography.)


We’re going up to London –
We’re going there by train.
We’ll spend the day in London
And then come back again . . .


Well, now we’re up in London,
And we can hear Big Ben
(Big Ben’s the bell inside),
And hark! It’s striking ten!


London’s full of people,
Some travelling by bus,
Or car or bike or taxi,
While others walk – like us.


It’s time to meet our friends
In what they call ‘Tate Modern’.
As power stations go,
Tate Modern is an odd ’un:
A giant of a place
With lots of things to see.
It’s by the Thames in London,
And the best thing is, it’s free!


And while we’re up in London,
We’ll cross the River Thames
By the new Millennium Bridge –
It’s one of London’s gems*.


St Paul’s Cathedral’s whopping,
As are its entrance fees.
We won’t go in; we’ll stop
To eat our sandwiches.


There’s dinosaurs in London,
Inside a huge museum,
So now we’re here in London
We’ll pop along to see ’em.
Oooh! They’re big and scary.
We’re glad they’re all extinct.
(Or are they? That one there –
I’m pretty sure it winked . . .)


Our time in London’s over,
It was a revelation!
We’ve had a lovely day,
Now we must find the station . . .


We’ve just been up to London –
We went there on the train.
We spent the day in London
And now we’re back again.

*  It doesn’t wobble any more,
Well, not enough to feel –
They fixed it with giant dampers
Made out of tons of steel.

[Images: telegraph.co.uk; wikipedia (2); ukstudentlife.com; BBC News; metazone.co.uk; /free-beautiful-desktop-wallpapers.blogspot.com/; blog.commarts.wisc.edu; dreamstime.com]
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Legs

Posted on August 11, 2011 by GJ

Grannies have special talents.

Amelia happily skipped through the door
But tripped on a toy, and went splat! on the floor.
“My legs,” cried Amelia, “are terribly sore.”
“Don’t worry,” said Granny, “I’ll knit you some more,

“I’ve got some spare wool. What colour, d’you think?”
“My favourite colour,” said Amelia, “is pink.”
“Then pink it shall be,” Granny said with a wink.
“I’ll knit your new legs while you have a nice drink.”

So she knitted a leg: it was long, pink and new;
But she’d used all her pink wool on one leg, not two!
“Don’t worry,” said Granny, “I know what I’ll do.”
And the next leg she knitted was a beautiful blue.

Now Amelia’s new legs are a sight to behold!
The new ones are better by far than the old.
In the winter they’re warm, in the summer they’re cold,
They can run, skip and dance, and they stretch and they fold!

“What a clever invention,” said Granddad. “I know,
We’ll go to the market and put them on show.
‘Knitted legs!’ we will cry, ‘good for sun, rain or snow!’
And people will buy them, and off they will go.

“And soon, all the world will queue up at the door:
‘Your legs are so lovely, your legs we adore!
Oh Granny, dear Granny, please knit us some more.’
And Granny will take out some wool from her drawer,

“And sit down to knit, and she’ll cover the floor
With those luvverly legs you can’t buy any more;
And she’ll open her very own knitted-leg store
For legs, like Amelia’s, so terribly sore.”

[Image: eu.imagine.com]
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Ordinary Time

Posted on August 10, 2011 by GJ

‘Ordinary Time’ is a concept still used by the governing bodies of some Western Christian churches to categorise the relative importance of certain periods in their calendar, such as Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter: it numbers the Sundays for which there is no specific relation to any of those events. Its computation is impressively complicated and no doubt keeps those governing bodies occupied; it’s not the sort of time you could measure with a watch. Its name does seem a bit of an insult to Time itself, though.

Time just isn’t ‘ordinary’. What a thing to say!
Time’s a slippery character in every kind of way:
He passes, but he can’t be caught; you cannot make him stay;
And he’s the cause of all our ageing and decay.

Time passes by at different rates depending on velocity,
Says a certain Special Theory, fruit of Einstein’s curiosity.
Some folk say they’ve too much Time, and fired with animosity
They kill him. (Ah, but Time kills, too: it’s temporal reciprocity1.)

Time is hand-in-glove with Life, and this you must concede:
Time can’t be earned, but only spent, for thus has Life decreed.
He flies and drags, but never stops – an uncontrollable steed;
He can’t be saved for rainy days, or begged in case of need;

He’s got a nick, an arrow, and his tables are on show;
And if you put a stitch in him, it’s nine you’ve saved. Bravo!
Yet “Time is an illusion, and lunchtime doubly so”
(Ford Prefect’s famous counsel2, and he, of all, should know).

By now, you’ll know the burden of this irritated rhyme:
That Time is inexplicable, inscrutable, sublime.
As far as I’m concerned, it is a gross linguistic crime
To downgrade such a mystery to ‘Ordinary Time’.

1   “In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us.” (Osbert Sitwell)
2   To Arthur Dent, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
[Image: jrllanes.files.wordpress.com]
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Paradigm lost

Posted on July 29, 2011 by GJ

The 2001 book The dinosaur hunters by Deborah Cadbury chronicles the way that people desperately tried to fit their ideas, observations and calculations into the powerful Biblical paradigm for the creation of the world, and the gradual emergence of a geological alternative based on the interpretation of physical evidence.

It’s been around for quite a time,
The Bible’s ancient paradigm.
Just look inside: the message is
In black and white in Genesis.

God’s universe-creating phase
Lasted, scriptures say, six days;
And Mankind was, we are informed,
By God’s own handiwork last formed.
But Eve and Adam went astray,
So Noah’s Flood swept all away –
The very first Catastrophe!
So is there evidence to see?

“No!” fundamentalists exclaim,
“You don’t need evidence. It’s plain
The Bible is the Word of Truth,
And God’s dictation needs no proof”.
The paradigm was very strong,
So no-one dared say it was wrong.
The things they saw, instead, they sought
To fit the view that they’d been taught.

Thus, hippo bones in Kirkdale’s cave1
“Showed clearly that the Flood’s great wave
Had swept these beasts from tropics distant
And smashed them up”. They were insistent2,
And scientists of great distinction
Declared: “The Flood had caused extinction”.
And, as the timescales seemed quite wrong,
They argued that “God’s ‘days’ were long”.

But in the Earth, a canny Scot3
Saw something cyclic: was it not
Erosion, settling in the ocean,
Then uplift? Eternal motion –
‘”No prospect of a start or end”?
Such views do paradigms upend!
Where now is Adam in this plan?
If Earth kept altering, did Man?

Were creatures not made at one time,
But changed, transmuted, down the line?
Was that the path that Man had trod?
Was he not specially made by God?

As fossils came to light, they made
The problem harder to evade,
For Genesis says in God’s plan
All creatures should be ruled by Man;
Yet giant lizards Mantell4 found,
Exhumed from Cuckfield’s ancient ground,
Were alpha-beasties of their day,
Long before the mammals’ sway.

The parsons could not reconcile
That awkward fact – the giant reptile
Which Mantell brought to prominence –
With Man’s God-given dominance.

They tried: “The fossil record shows
How God had made, in several goes,
The Earth more fit for Man to dwell in.
That must be what the Bible’s telling”.
The Reverend Buckland5 said, “What’s more,
These creatures red in tooth and claw
Made sure that death came very quick
To what they killed: God’s clever trick!’

Meanwhile, in France, George Scrope6 had found
A valley in volcanic ground
Which sat on top of gravels. That
Among the pigeons put the cat!
For if the Flood had dumped the gravels
On its Earth-encircling travels,
It could not simultaneously
Have shaped the valleys that we see.

Charles Lyell7 concluded, “There’s no doubt
That river action carved them out,
Its fluvial fluxions rearranging
All the land, which keeps on changing”.

And Lyell went on, “What I propose is,
To free up science from old Moses.
Our science needs no God, or Flood:
That paradigm is now a dud”.

It’s been around for quite a time,
The Bible’s ancient paradigm.
But it’s a poor theology
That disregards geology.

1: Kirkdale is near Kirkbymoorside in the Vale of Pickering, North Yourshire, UK
2: But by 1822, William Buckland (shown entering the cave) had concluded that the cave was a pre-Flood hyaena den
3: James Hutton MD (1726–1797)
4: Gideon Mantell MD (1790–1852)
5: William Buckland DD FRS (1784–1856)
6: George Julius Poulett Scrope FRS (1797–1876)
7: Charles Lyell Kt FRS (1797–1875)
[Images: Genesis: AlbertMohler.com; Kirkdale cave: Wikipedia; Iguanodon: DK Clipart; Charles Lyell: Wikipedia]
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Bracklesham Bay

Posted on July 16, 2011 by GJ

On the West Sussex coast, Bracklesham Bay is one of the most productive fossil-hunting locations around these parts. Throughout the year the sea erodes undersea exposures of fossil-bearing clay formed some 46 million years ago. Given the right conditions, a variety of fossils can be simply picked up from the sand or beach, including: bivalve and gastropod shells, shark and ray teeth, corals and many other marine fossils. One man has been leading fossil-collecting hunts here since 1983, and has his own website.

On the sea-floor of Bracklesham Bay,
Tidal erosion each day
Jiggles and jostles
Its Eocene fossils
And washes them out of the clay.

From there, as the tides come and go,
They’re carried with each ebb and flow
Till they land on the sand
Of the Bracklesham strand,
Where they make a spectacular show.

If it rains, just put up umbrellas
And hunt for your first Turritellas,
Nummulites, Carditas –
Oh, there’s nothing as sweet as
When you chance upon these little fellas!

You need a good day at low tide
And must scour the beach, eagle-eyed,
If you want to go back
With a fossil-filled sack
To show to your friends with great pride.

If you’re lucky, and in the right zone,
You may find that you’re not quite alone;
For  who might appear
But the expert round here –
Yes, the Bracklesham King, David Bone!

[Photos (© David Bone, used with permission): www.westsussexgeology.co.uk]
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The hanging basket

Posted on July 14, 2011 by GJ

Life must be so unpredictable for these things, especially during long hot summer days. But the media is full of advice on how to make the water we use go further . . .

I am a hanging basket
Who’s planted to the hilt.
I hope someone will water me,
Or else my flowers will wilt;

And then they’ll say it’s my fault
And throw me in the bin.
If I don’t get some water soon,
My chances do seem thin.

I think the lady of the house
Has heard dire news of drought
And hosepipe bans. So I suppose
That I must do without.

I hear her emptying her bath –
Such wasteful ways she’s got!
Those foamy gallons I could use
To irrigate my plot.

But wait! I hear her coming,
A bucket I can see . . .
A bucket full of frothy suds . . .
And coming towards me!

I’m now a hanging basket
Who’s lathered clean and pure.
And my flowers, now they’re watered,
Have a Radox-like allure.

[Image: www.gardenshedadvisor.co.uk]
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Things

Posted on July 14, 2011 by GJ

Stereotypes, maybe; but I’ve been there . . .

Babies are such funny things:
Noisy, smelly, runny things,
Cost-a-lot-of-money things,
But on the whole, bright, sunny things
Who soon enough will crawl.

Children are go-crazy things,
Crash-bang, oops-a-daisy things,
Tumble-bump, knee-grazey things,
Bipolar, manic/lazy things
Whose writing is a scrawl.

Teenagers are lanky things,
No-money-in-the-banky things
Whose trainers are – ugh! – manky things,
Strutting, grunting, swanky things
Who never sit but sprawl.

Parents are old squarey things,
Sometimes not-much-hairy things,
Often airy-fairy things,
But usefully child-carey things
When offspring come to call

With babies (they’re such tiny things),
Or children (often whiney things
Who argue over slides and swings),
Or teens (those prickly, spiny things);
And yet we love ’em all!

[Image: www.endocytosis.org]
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Jessibels

Posted on July 12, 2011 by GJ

The decibel is named in honour of the communications pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. Unfortunately, he had not come into aural contact with our new grandaughter.

The decibel scale’s logarithmic,
To cater for all sorts of sound
From leaves rustling quietly in forests
To aeroplanes flying around.

In today’s modern world, though, some noises
Are too loud to be measured in decibels,
So we’ve made a new scale for our granddaughter,
For Jessica’s yells are in jessibels.

(See also Jessica Judge)

[Image: www.carrottspc.com]
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On the bowling greens of Worthing

Posted on July 4, 2011 by GJ

On a visit to Beach House Park in the Sussex seaside town of Worthing, groups of mature white-clad ladies and gentlemen were rolling big black balls towards little white balls on a dead flat, closely mowed rectangular patch of grass. I searched the internet for more details, so that I could appear more knowlegable next time.


On the bowling greens of Worthing,
Where the rinks are flat and true,
The players are all dressed in white –
It’s what they like to do.

A wood is rolled with careful aim
Towards the distant jack.
(It’s not as easy at it looks:
It takes a certain knack.)

The wood is not a simple sphere,
So its bias makes it swerve;
But that player knew exactly how
Her bowl was going to curve.

Her forehand draw had just the weight,
And she’d aimed it to the right,
To take it on its left-curved way
To the jack so small and white.

The other players roll their woods
And build a scattered head
Of bowls around the jack; but those
That hit the ditch are dead.

And when the end is finished,
And the players’ shots are scored,
The losers clap the winners,
Which is their just reward.

For the bowling greens of Worthing,
Where the grass is short and fine,
Are sanctuaries of manners
From a now too-distant time.

[Photo: www.ilovesussex.com]
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Thrasonical

Posted on June 28, 2011 by GJ

There is a service, available to internet users, that delivers one unusual word every day. This was today’s word – it means bragging or boastful, and comes from the Greek for bold. A friend wondered when he might ever be able to use it, so I offered this suggestion.

In matters anatomical
Or sightings astronomical,
To claim your work’s canonical
Is seriousously thrasonical.

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Function denial

Posted on June 24, 2011 by GJ

Sign designers should take into account the broader effects of their work . . .


I’m recovering from mental abuse.
Whilst driving, admiring the views,
My progress was halted
When my brain was assaulted
By a sign that read: “Sign not in use”.

[Image: inspirational-quotes-short-funny-stuff.com]
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Green hills

Posted on June 17, 2011 by GJ

Old hymns sometimes use a word whose primary meaning has changed over the years. It can be disturbing to some modern readers.


“There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall”.
I used to wonder why that hill
Should want the thing at all.

I thought of all the hills I knew
That seemed to get on fine
Without a circling wall of stone
As part of their design . . .

But wait! Some landscape architect
Like Capability Brown
Might capture it to elevate
Some poor, flat-lying town!

Oh wouldn’t that be terrible,
It wouldn’t do at all.
“Our green hills are in danger,”
Must be our clarion call,

“They need your help. Please donate now –
There’s no time to delay –
So we can build some city walls
Round green hills far away.”

[Photo: BBC]
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Paludina

Posted on June 4, 2011 by GJ

So-called Sussex ‘Marble’ is also known as winklestone, Paludina limestone, Bethersden Marble, Charlwood Stone, Laughton Marble, and Petworth Marble. But whatever it’s called, its defining characteristic is the particular type of fossil snail whose sectioned shell gives the stone its unique character: the freshwater gastropod Paludina (now known as Viviparus). In the past, other shelly limestones, especailly those containing the bivalve Cyrena, were probably passed off as Sussex Marble.


To claim that ‘Sussex Marble’ is a marble isn’t right –
It’s a limestone in the beds of old Weald Clay.
But it takes a lovely polish, so it shines up nice and bright
Once you’ve dug it up and carted it away .

And polishing reveals its ancient snail-encrusted core,
A challenge for the Latin-name-assigner.
They came from boggy places, these old fossil shells of yore,
So from palus (meaning marsh) came Paludina*.

(Beware of ‘Sussex Marble’ though, with bivalves peeping through –
Not a single sectioned snail-shell to be seen.
It isn’t Sussex Marble with its Paludina crew,
These bivalves are Cyrena – ‘sovereign queen’.)

*The pronunciation of this word was a puzzle (I had a Latin-free education). Sources at two learned institutions admitted they didn’t know, but an on-line pronunciation aid for biological terms seemed to suggest a long, stressed penultimate vowel: Pal-u-DYE-na.

(See also Sussex Marble and The building stones of Sussex)

[Photo of Sussex 'Marble': British Geological Survey (ref. P212420)]
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False pretences

Posted on May 25, 2011 by GJ

The barcode tag on an article bought in a well-known chain store declared, rather immodestly, I thought, “Intelligent tag”. So, when I couldn’t find one of the store’s customer facilities, I decided to test it.

If this tag’s so intelligent,
I’ll ask it where the Gent’s is . . .
It doesn’t know! It’s labouring
Under very false pretences.

[Image: restorationonline.com]
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New Titanomyrmaland

Posted on May 8, 2011 by GJ

Giant ants are today found in tropical areas such as central Africa, but a 50 million year-old giant queen ant fossil (Titanomyrma lubei) over 5 cm long has recently been found in Wyoming. Similar fossil species have been found in Germany and the Isle of Wight. The Eocene temperature occasionally rose higher than it is today, probably because of the release of greenhouse gases such as methane into the atmosphere; and land-bridges connected Europe, Greenland and America, so intercontinental interchange was possible. Her Majesty explains:


I’m Titanomyrma lubei,
The two-inch-long Queen of the Ants:
They’ve found my remains in Wyoming
But my family roots were in Hants*.

I and my giant formic forbears
Grew large in that Eocene time.
Global warming from masses of methane
Gave the Arctic a temperate clime,

So we left all our Isle of Wight cousins –
Dull stay-at-home timid things, they –
And set off on our grand transmigration:
Each queen in her turn led the way.

With no sat nav commands to mislead them,
They reckoned the best way to go
Was over the land-bridge to Greenland
Thanks to sea-levels being so low.

Once there, in the warm Greenland climate,
They sensed that, not too far away,
Just over the land-bridge to America,
New Titanomyrmaland lay.

When they got to Wyoming they settled,
And took to these arid terrains.
So I’m proud that my lubei lineage
Is enshrined in my mortal remains.

* In fact, following a ‘Home Rule’ campaign, the Isle of Wight has been politically separate from Hampshire since 1890; but Her Majesty could not have foreseen this.

[Photo & drawing: The Royal Society]
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White Wight?

Posted on May 6, 2011 by GJ

A local newspaper placard announced: ‘Family tickets for Isle of White’.

Oh, what a plight –
It seems last night
The Isle turned White!
(To my delight
It wasn’t right.
So don’t take fright:
The Isle of Wight
Is quite alright.)

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April showers

Posted on May 3, 2011 by GJ

Last September, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft observed liquid falling on the equatorial deserts of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan – this was equivalent to early April in Titan’s year. (The cloud formation from which it’s falling is the bright arrow-shaped area on the left of the photo.)

When rain falls in Spain
It all falls* on the plain,
And (in Spanish) they say, “Look, it’s raining!”
But they shouldn’t complain
Of their watery rain,
For on Titan they’d say, “It’s methaning!”

* (mainly)

[Photo: NASA/JPL/SSI]
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Un-invited guests

Posted on April 29, 2011 by GJ

About 1900 invitations to the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011 were sent out. Ours must have got lost in the post.


Our invite to the wedding of Prince William and Kate
Still hasn’t been delivered yet, and now it’s much too late.
Oh well, it can’t be helped. I’ll think I’ll nip down the deli
For something nice to eat , and then we’ll watch it on the telly.

[Image: etonline.com]
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Jessica Judge

Posted on March 21, 2011 by GJ

It’s as though there’s a conspiracy to give grandchildren un-rhymable names. But at least the latest arrival has a name with a jolly rhythm.

Jessica Judge was born on a Sunday,
Jessica Judge made everyone glad!
So Granny and Granddad send love and best wishes
To Jessica Judge, and her Mum, and her Dad.

But what of the future? What will it hold
For Jessica Judge, still a baby?
We hope she’ll be happy, and healthy, and wise.
And will she be rich? Well, maybe . . .

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Street View

Posted on March 19, 2011 by GJ

The Street View facility in Google Earth’s photographic representation of the world lets you see what streets – and the houses and people in them – looked like when its car-mounted camera passed by. But something is missing.


Google Street View didn’t see me
With its panoramic eye,
For I had gone out shopping
When its camera drove by.

If they’d told me they were coming
I’d have looked out for their car;
I would have stood outside my house,
And I’d have been a star. . .

But no; I’m not on Street View.
It seems celebrity
Has overlooked me yet again –
You can’t zoom in on me.

[Image: mirror.co.uk (Google)]
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Glendonite

Posted on March 12, 2011 by GJ

Glendonite is an anhydrous, but structurally identical, version of ikaite, a mineral which forms only in near-freezing alkaline water. During a talk about how he was able to infer what the Arctic climate was like in Cretaceous times, the speaker described the technique he had used to search for this unusual material below the icy waters of Alaska. I felt that a Health and Safety warning was needed.

When next in the Arctic, ignore all advice sheets!
Geologists there who are looking for clues
About palaeoclimates, especially ice-sheets,
Should strip to their T-shirt, take off their shoes,

Then jump in the water (it’ll be nearly freezing)
And wiggle their toes in a meaningful way.
(There’s a breed of geologist to whom this is pleasing,
Though quite why that’s so, I really can’t say.)

The object of this masochistic endeavour
Is to feel for a glendonite lump with your toe;
And then you can say, feeling ever so clever,
“It was glacial once in these parts, don’t y’know!

“For glendonite used to be ikaite, see?
A hydrated calcite, that forms
In alkaline water as cold as can be,
But it changes as soon as it warms.”

(It loses its water, but its shape stays impressed –
It’s a pseudomorph, so I am told.)
But don’t spend too long on your glendonite quest
Lest you perish because of the cold. . .

[Image from rocksforkids.com]
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Blog slog

Posted on March 11, 2011 by GJ

A blog site is an unusual birthday present, but it will be easier to manage than a website.


It has been quite a slog
Compiling this blog,
So I hope that it’s all been worthwhile.
You might do much worse
Than to see if my verse
Makes you think, and perhaps raise a smile . . .

[Cartoon: spoiledyogi.blogspot.com]
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Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Posted on March 9, 2011 by GJ

In March 2011, Ecological Hosting moved these poems from servers powered by the sun (see Ecological Hosting) to others driven by wind power.

There’s a wind farm somewhere out there
That’s generating power
To keep these verses on the web
Hour after hour.

Thanks, Ecological Hosting,
For helping me sleep easy:
My poems won’t burn carbon
As long as it stays breezy. . .

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Old friends

Posted on March 2, 2011 by GJ

In transferring 360-odd poems from their ‘GeoVerse’ website to this blog, I came face-to-screen with each of them again.


Re-reading one’s old poems is like meeting long-lost friends.
“How time does fly,” you say, “I must admit
It seems like only yesterday I put you on the page.
You really haven’t changed one little bit!”

(The fact is, once I’d written them, the sooner they were gone
And living far away in cyberspace,
The better. Only then could this old brain relax and rest,
And of their lines eradicate all trace!)

[Photo: Philip Greenspun (philip.greenspun.com)]
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Please rinse and return your milkman

Posted on February 28, 2011 by GJ

My daughter, when younger and into reading anything she could lay her hands on, once collapsed in a heap of mirth after mis-reading the recycling message impressed on our glass milk bottles. I wondered how I’d cope if they really had omitted that little word ‘to’.

‘Please rinse and return your milkman,’
Said the bottle. Well, that’ll be fun!
I was thinking the day before yesterday,
It’s a long time since last he was done.

And milkmen do really need rinsing:
Their job is all work and no play,
Exposed to the foulest of weathers
And picking up empties all day.

The problem is, how should I rinse him?
Do I creep up behind him and hose him,
Or sponge him all over with water?
I’d better ask someone who knows him.

I’ll ring up my neighbour and check
What she thinks might be worth trying out.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry,” she answered,
“I’ve rinsed him – he’s just drying out.”

[Image from Nine Shift]
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A lasting impression

Posted on February 15, 2011 by GJ

This is the true tale of two work colleagues, A and B, chatting. As A relates how, long ago, she had seen her ideal pet on television, B realises it was her own parent’s celebrated canine, whose name has been immortalised in verse (see World-wide-Wallace).

“I’d like to have a dog,” says A.
“I know just what I’d like:
A very special animal,
Not any mongrel tyke.

“A long-haired mini-dachshund
Is the breed I have I mind,
A handsome-looking one; but that’s
The sort that’s hard to find!

“But, once, the perfect dog for me
Appeared on television
Eleven years ago, at Crufts;
So now I’m on a mission.

“Do you know where one might be found
To offer me some solace?”
“Amazingly, I do,” cries B,
“He’s Mum and Dad’s – he’s Wallace!”.

[Image from Aiello's Long Haired Dachsunds - it's not the real Wallace!]
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Causes

Posted on February 14, 2011 by GJ

When something happens, your brain has learned to ask why. It wants to be able either to stop it happening again, or – if it was something nice – to repeat it. Science now offers a way of looking at the world that has removed much of the fear and superstition that troubled previous generations. But its “laws” are no more than well-tested best guesses at how the universe really operates.


Events without cause are a worry,
For we like to know why they arose.
“Help!” cries the brain, in a flurry,
“Is there a reason, d’you suppose?”

So it dreams up ingenious hypotheses
And challenges you to invest in them.
It often produces a lot of these,
But leaves you to set about testin’ them.

In the past, brains would posit that forces
Deployed by a devil or god,
Had summoned their mystic resources
To conjure up something so odd.

So we’d sacrifice, worship and pray
To the powers we thought were involved,
That good fortune would soon come our way
And our transgressions all be absolved.

But nowadays, science has taught us
A method of testing the claims
That our mental activity’s brought us,
So that what is most likely remains.

Yet “most likely” is never enough.
We describe our conclusions as “laws”,
But to say that we’re “certain” is tough,
For we’re not in control of the cause.

[Cartoon: wholeearthcare.blogspot.com]
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Twinkle, twinkle, little sar

Posted on February 10, 2011 by GJ

In 2004, astronomers discovered a collapsed white-dwarf star, BPM 37093, in the constellation Centaurus whose carbon core had crystallised into a 10 billion trillion trillion carat gem just 4000 km across*.


Twinkle, twinkle, little star!
Now we know just what you are:
A crystallised white dwarf, so high.
You are a diamond in the sky!

Astronomers have sussed you out,
Their instruments have left no doubt:
Your seismic oscillations showed
Your hot, dense core’s a priceless load.

Your carat count is astronomic;
But mining you’s not economic –
Fifty light-years is too far!
So keep on twinkling, little star. . .

*See this abstract from the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System

[Star map from Wikimedia Commons]
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A girl’s best friend?

Posted on February 10, 2011 by GJ

An assertion about tetrahedrally-bonded carbon, made by two well known actresses in the 1949 Broadway musical and 1953 film of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, was eagerly picked up by those who sell small chunks of this product of the Earth’s mantle. Scientists have been more matter-of-fact about the stuff.


Carol Channing’s declaration
And Miss Monroe’s affirmation
That diamonds really are “a girl’s best friend”,
Is a claim without reliance
On the disciplines of science,
But one which high-street jewellers still defend.

In fact, a diamond’s assets
Are its highly polished facets,
Its hardness, and its toughness and its hue,
Such features corresponding
To its tetrahedral bonding.
Poor Marilyn. I wonder if she knew?

[Image: Whiteflash.com]
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Much ado about nothing

Posted on January 28, 2011 by GJ

Vacuums have intrigued people for ages; they’ve philosophised about them and done experiments with them. A perfect vacuum – an absence of all matter – is said to be impossible, but that doesn’t stop people finding uses for imperfect ones. A vacuum of my acquaintance explains.

Nature (bless her cotton socks) is said to quite abhor me,
But astronauts in outer space are dead if they ignore me!
Keen picnickers with Thermos flasks unknowingly adore me;
And shoppers buy me sealed in packs, and take me home and store me.

Torricelli with his mercury, Pascal (who wrote a book*),
Von Guericke, and Boyle (and not forgetting Robert Hooke),
All searched for me with tubes and pumps, by which these icons took
As much air as they could from every cranny, every nook.

In the hemispheres of Magdeburg, I held back teams of horses;
And gravity works through me, keeping planets in their courses.
I’m hard to make and hard to break without substantial forces.
You’ll never make me perfect, though, whatever your resources.

Science and religion both agree I don’t exist;
And I’ve driven many physicists completely round the twist.
I’m inside all your light bulbs, and your Hoovers I assist;
Yet I’m hard to get to grips with, for of nothing I consist. . .

So it’s better if I just remain a cerebral construction:
Just think of me as ‘nothing’ and, by way of introduction,
Remember me whenever your new Dyson wields its suction.
But make sure you never meet me – oh, imagine the destruction!

* Experiences nouvelles touchant le vide (New Experiments with the Vacuum), 1647

[Image from Kenyon College website]
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Whodunit?

Posted on January 22, 2011 by GJ

The latest chart issued by the International Committee on Stratigraphy (ICS) no longer shows the period, from about 65 million years ago to 2.6 million years ago, familiar to geologists as the Tertiary. Its sediments filled the London Basin. This called for investigation (with apologies to a certain dead parrot).

The Tertiary is no more: it’s ceased to be.
It has expired and gone to meet its maker.
A stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace.
It’s pushing up the daisies in God’s acre.

What scoundrel could have dealt the deadly blow
That sent it shuffling off this mortal coil?
The question needed answering, and so
I sought out Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle.

Could Holmes identify the perpetrator?
“I see . . .” the great man said, then “I see . . . yes . . .”
And that was all. I questioned Watson later:
“That’s just like Holmes,” he said, “I must confess.

“His answer seems obscure; but think about it –
Repeat it several times, with different stress.
The culprit will emerge, I do not doubt it.”
I tried it: “Yes . . . I see, yes . . . ICS!

I wondered how he’d solved this heinous crime.
Had killing off the Tertiary left a clue
That only this detective in his prime
Could see for what it was? And then I knew:

Those rascals, in their international meetings,
Had ordered that the Tertiary should not stay;
And Holmes had felt the shock of their deletings,
For Baker Street is built on London Clay!

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
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Travellers’ rest

Posted on January 19, 2011 by GJ

A new Travelodge hotel opened in Horsham in January 2011. (This poem, a finalist in its launch-day competition, now hangs on the wall in Reception.)

Welcome, traveller in time and space!
Come rest awhile from life’s relentless pace
In Horsham, ancient Sussex marketplace.
First eat, then yield to sleep’s tranquil embrace.

The poet, Shelley, close by here was born
In 1792, one August morn.
Unconventional, his years by passions torn;
Not in his life, but later, came his dawn.

But you, who in these hotel walls abide,
Will meet his “sweet child, Sleep, the filmy-eyed”
As time holds still, let quiet repose provide
A life-renewing, thorough-cleansing tide.

And as you drift, let cares evaporate away,
Transformed by slumber’s nightly theatre play
Which wafts you softly to another day.
Then, traveller, arise and go your way!

[The quotation is from Shelley’s “To Night”]

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Stratford-upon-Bytham

Posted on January 13, 2011 by GJ

Artefacts left by the first humans in Britain have been found in the midland and eastern counties of England, on the course of a now-extinct river named after Castle Bytham, where  evidence of its existence was first discovered. It originally rose in the vicinity of what is now Stratford-upon-Avon. Feeling ignored, it has a couple of questions to ask.

Two million years before young William Shakespeare stole the scene,
My waters flowed past Stratford in a land so lushly green.
I was slow and wide and muddy, you couldn’t call me energetic –
Well, why flow fast when slow would do? I didn’t do ‘frenetic’.

But then the climate changed, and I became a different river
As the vegetation withered and the Earth began to shiver.
At last I had a job to do: to transport to the sea
Frost-shattered rocks of Birmingham as gravelly debris.

I flowed so fast and scoured my bed so deeply that I stopped
That other river’s header flows from Wales – the Thames was topped!
With melting glacial water coming every Spring my way,
I was the land’s Prime Drainer – Bytham River ruled, OK!

But now I am no more. How are the proud and mighty fallen;
My course now only traceable in gravels, mud and pollen.
Will Shakespeare’s actors come to learn that once I flowed nearby them?
And will the town be known instead as “Stratford-upon-Bytham”?

[Image: BBC News]
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Growing organic

Posted on January 3, 2011 by GJ

Nature’s looters must wholeheartedly approve of organic gardening; but they don’t seem to have hearts . . .


Growing veg can drive a chap manic,
As he battles with forces satanic:
All those pigeons and slugs
And whole armies of bugs
Make it difficult being organic.

[Photo: duckdinnerdash.blogspot.com]
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The leek

Posted on January 3, 2011 by GJ

Easy to sow, easy to grow, delicious to eat!

It’s long, and it’s green, and it’s sleek.
Its flavour is subtly weak,
Well sautéed, of course,
With a creamy cheese sauce:
Mouthwatering and luscious, the leek!

[Image: Devon Fresh]
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Oak and willow

Posted on December 7, 2010 by GJ

One of four short poems* written to hang on one of a number of small artificial trees intended to decorate a local church at Christmas 2010.

Hearts of oak, once our defences,
Now support our garden fences.
Willow, though, still guards one’s wicket
(Other timbers just aren’t cricket).

*The others are Hug a tree, Poet-tree and The Music Tree.

[Images: Wikimedia Commons]
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