Science

  The Cover-up Everything went smoothly on the morning that we launched __And headed off to make our flight through space. And we’d now been receding from the earth for three long years, __While traveling at a hard to fathom pace. Now at last our destination loomed before our eyes...

  Blood Miracle Red marrow makes most of the cells of our blood, _A half-trillion plus every day. Though we're fully fashioned from regular mud, _The blood renders mud living clay. A stem cell matures to a single blood cell _That travels around a few days, Resembling vermillion or light,...

  Grave New Globe   I. Lair ---a pantoum You said that owning nothing was a blessing. You whipped our worldly wealth and worth away. You told us that regressing meant progressing To greener grass where sunbeams saved the day. You whipped our worldly wealth and worth away. You locked...

  The Mission Our mission---to discover signs of life amongst the stars---seemed destined to succeed; for though our sun-strewn galaxy was rife with barren orbs, our probe commenced to feed our mother ship with data that portrayed a double-planet’s larger sibling as a place where fast-evolving beasts once stayed before...

  In the Days of the Green Comet (February, 2023) A green-tailed comet’s in the sky tonight; Neanderthals and cats with sabre teeth were last to see it glistening this bright. But neither now is wandering beneath this ice-and-dust phenomenon whose head bedazzles as it closes on the sun. When...

  A Pindaric Ode to Accuracy Congratulations to well-educated nobs, Antithesis of credulous unlettered slobs, _Sharp minds who bring the truth to light, _Who cite their sources, get things right, __Subjecting all to thought, __Discounting rumor, not Believing what they can't substantiate, Not judging till they can investigate, ___They fix...

  I Dwell Within a Tidal Pool I dwell within a tidal pool; My world, though small, is most complete. I float around, I play the fool, And hang with creatures that I meet. Sea urchins are my boyhood pals, Blue mussels open up to help The small green crabs...

  Earth to Earthlings The dinosaurs were shuffled off My crust with gusto as I grinned, Yet shamelessly you scheme and scoff--- You claim you’ll tame my waves and wind, You’ll temper tempests, freshen air. Your cocky folly makes me curse. Hush pious pieholes! Spare your care! Like dodos you...

. Black Holes Some say the universe is full of holes That suck in all that is. At warp-speed, gone. One wonders where was space-time goes. Like souls, perhaps, through portals to some wide-eyed dawn. Or through a trap door dumped below death’s hell No speck escapes, no world, no...

. Autism Sonnet The lights are much too light and sounds too loud; And thoughts are only thought in black and white; Try to tolerate a middling crowd And talk so small, so pointless, so polite. To hyper-focus is the narrow way That leads to life, that few will ever...

. Australian poet Clive Boddy sent in the article "How Poetry Changes You and Your Brain" published in Greater Good Magazine, which includes the following: A 2022 study found creative expression therapy using poetry was a powerful trauma support tool for unaccompanied refugee minors from Afghanistan; and poetry activities have...

. Blood Moon Eclipse (14 March 2025) The Moon’s blood red this morning as it floats within Earth’s shadow, bathing it in light refracted round our atmosphere, which coats the lunar dust in rust—a wonderous sight! Meantime, on climate change we chew the cud, the Middle East and Europe are...

. Learning Curves In classrooms smeared with monkey poop__Where questions meet deceit,She heard she came from soupy gloop---__A slab of soulless meat.Her teachers preached from thrones of bones---__They dragged brains to the brinkOf simian survival zones__That missed a vital link. Professors of the hammer tore__The wings from seraphim.They tethered lore...

. Blind Watchmaker A blind watchmaker tinkered for billions of yearswithout blueprints for making his intricate gears.So, he failed many times but got up when he felland was shocked when he made not a watch, but a cell. From that cell, which he made from primordial slime,every creature evolved through...

. Dog Eat Dog As cells get divided, if outcomes are guided _completely by rolling the dice, the fit must survive so their genes stay alive, _while the weak pay the ultimate price. So students of Darwin, say people who are win- _ners of this genetic roulette must all procreate...

. Full Circle From age to age how long the fray’s been fought Tween those who seek the Truth on sacred ground And those who wish to harness mankind’s thought To what is measured, tested, proved, and sound. Empiric minds pronounced the pious “fools,” And promised nature’s Truth would yield...

. Galileo Under Confinement Scene: Florence, 1636 AD. In the third year of his life imprisonment (as sentenced by the Holy Inquisition) Galileo Galilei---now 71---poses at his prison-home for the Flemish painter Justus Sustermans. Signore Artist, may we stop and rest? Remember, I’m not young. Give me your hand. Some...

. Just Doin' Our Job As if they didn’t have enough to do already---harvesting the light to make food for the tree and seeing to it you and I have clean air every day---leaves slake their host tree’s constant thirst by managing the process whereby unseen roots will take the...

. The High Priest's Homily Once Man, in thrall to ignorance, believed the world was round, But now we know that everything is one vast sea of sound, __And what seemed solid ground Is but an anxious emptiness, devoid of shape or hue; So all such things as now appear...

. . Webb Beyond the vast and empty sky, Where darkness dwells forever wide, The eye arrives to question, "Why?" The universe has long denied A distant glimpse to those below Who seek to see where stars collide. But now the eye can help them know The stars the heavens...

. Standing Up The screech of an eagle __Will marshal our senses And, if reckoned regal, __Refocus our lenses __On many events That we blithely ignored __When we kept to our tents, Hypothermic and bored. As a matter of focus, __It’s best to remain In the proximate locus __Of brawn...

. Dialogue on a First Grade Science Textbook Many spiritual traditions throughout history have perceived all things, animate and inanimate, as living. "Usually religions teach people to believe spiritually so as to achieve material transformation, whereas science tells people to perceive materially so as to elicit people’s spiritual trust and...

. “Newquay, we have a problem” January 9, 2023 We’ve gathered in thousands to witness the blast-off, We’re sipping Champagne with our eyes full of stars. In five or ten years now, our guys will be planting, The Red, White and Blue on the surface of Mars. The seven-four-seven rolls...

. Somewhere in Time . Tuesday, August 13, In the Year of Our Lord 1895 Dear Wells, despite your sober apprehension, I’m grateful that you’ve granted me the boon Of borrowing your brilliant new invention. I plan to use it Sunday afternoon. I share your fears that changing past events...

. CDC: Save the Planet from Poison CO2!! “We used to think CO2 was a harmless trace gas… How wrong we were!” ---Dr. Dillard “Sparky” Barker, SMFS, The CDC’s Second Most Famous Scientist Your noxious exhalations contain tons of CO2 So Dillard “Sparky” Barker has the newest mask for you....

. An Anti-Evolution Song Evolution Is False. God Is True. inspired by the writings of Zhang Tianliang How probable is it, however you spin it, __That man has evolved out of nothing? Do I look like a schmuck who would think that dumb luck __Could just randomly tweak and make...

. On Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphic Fields Are we just rats within a maze? Perhaps. But then perhaps there’s more to rats than what We know. Take for example rats completing A water-maze within a lab at Harvard. At first they're slow, of course, but soon they change. A drive to...

. . Shhh… Shanghai trembles at the edge of hell As horror wafts and weaves its way through streets. The moon melts in the flare of terror’s yell--- Hot howls of raw despair till morning greets Locked up souls locked down for safety’s sake As Satan prowls for hearts he burns to break. He gulps the tears the hopeless start...

. Nuclear Fusion written upon hearing of the UK's recent fusion energy breakthrough Those white-coated boffins in England, Have been toiling for years, so it seems. To harness the power of Fusion, As the answer to all of our dreams. Where millions of pounds have been wasted, On experiments destined...

Transhumanism Somewhere about there’s a slithering sound of man’s enmity, causing excitement and casting the seeds of calamity, claiming enlightened revision of old postmodernity. Oh! But the thought is as novel as man in eternity. Lewis and Ransom have shown us to view the transhumanists in the same light as...

Maoism “Power comes from the barrel of a gun,” That was the essence of Mao’s logic. Millions have perished under his gun. What was the purpose of Mao’s logic? He claimed that he brought peace throughout the land. Did he do it for socialism’s sake? His revolutions disrupted the land...

I love to gaze into the midnight sky To search the night for planets and bright stars, Caress, with pointing finger, blazing Mars, And blow a kiss to Venus passing by. I wonder and I ponder other beings, Perhaps now casting eyes at Milky Way, Their far-off planet turning into...