Poetry Still

Modelling

Enter the modeller…
So
The alchemist returns
Turns lead into gold in his model
Aha!
It is pyrite disguised as platinum
And how well the deceiver stands in status
Paid with lucre fit for kings
With the well funded persona of counterfeit respectability
A well paid shadow in the persuasive halls of pretence
Free as a bird, a bird of prey,
To generate the illusion of accurate judgement
But hiding a dark reality
How strange it is that mathematical misdemeanours
Effigies in data
Drawn from false or non-existent prototypes
Can be declared masterstrokes of planning for government action
Then the apparent genius declares the big lie
With a fanfare of fake trumpets
And the mob bows its heads in wonder
Deceived by the deadly patter of unintelligibility
Befuddling their brains with cunning opacity
And so
The nation continues to burn coal, oil and natural gas
To generate power
To reduce forests to their last throes of existence
To generate wood and space
To produce consumer goods ad infinitum
To generate profit
Unmentioned by the consultant posing as a truthful scion of reality
Do you hear the praise the profiteers heap upon his kind of truth?
Deafening applause for the deceptive mock up
As the irrelevant music plays and we dance a destructive dance?

Data

Look at me
I am a number
Just an outcome of mean and standard deviation
With all my virtues nullified by analysis of co-variance
It’s a funny feeling this
A kind of impersonal existence
Insensitive to love and hate, anxiety and fear
Just an equation ready for persuasion
The integer that I am
Will be determined by what I do on the net
By what I support publicly
By what I buy
More importantly
Decisions will be made about my life
Based entirely of formulaic movement of calculations
If they move a decimal even one point to the left
Considerable misery is likely
Two points to the right and we’ll all be in paradise
Unless we are dealing with disease
It all depends on the raison d’être of the mathematician
On the aims of the elected leaders
And how accurately their integrity is portrayed to the masses
To get them into power
That’s it then
Look carefully please at me
Will I die?
The probability is one
With things as they are, will I be happy before I die?
That probability is one divided by infinity

..
On An Infamous Grasping Trickster

Look at him
A pretentious icon of self interest
He has to be popular to survive
People have to choose him
So he praises himself by word and deed
Extremely overtly
Like a degenerate peacock
He puts himself into public gaze as if it were an accident
Instead, it is so deliberate
So calculating
So cunningly intruding into people’s attention
Things happen as if by chance
Whereas all is so carefully planned
He’ll go to a place where cameras just happen to be
Because of forewarning
He’ll drive past in an electric car as global warming pretence
And wave to the viewers
As if he didn’t know they would be there
He’ll flaunt himself in a factory wearing a hard hat
Shake hands demonstrably
With an old man he has never met before
And never will again
He will speak at a conference for fifty minutes
And say nothing
To make sure his backers are not compromised
He will laugh nonchalantly as often as a cameraman can find him
To imply a cheerful soul goodwill hunting
He will deny his mistakes and share his intentions as if beholden
And promise you the moon on a dark and moonless night
As if he owned Apollo 12
But instead, with face radiant and guile embellished with smiles,
He will sell you Apollo 13

On Not Being Understood

Sometimes despair hovers around you
Your words bounce off the minds of others
Like rain on a tin roof
And run away down a gutter of misunderstanding
To disappear
As if they had never happened
The challenge is
To keep on sharing your thoughts
To foster still the hope that springs eternal*
And believe that one day
You will touch minds with another thinking reed
Sometimes you win
More often alas you lose
Yet be not afraid to cast pearls before swine**
Dangerous as that is…
Victory can change the world in no small way
If even one mind, perhaps a young one,
Is touched by what you say
And is guided by your words to a better place
All will then be closer to well in a worried world
Than if you had been condemned by fear and dread
To furtive silence
So speak on despite the ignorance around you
Share your wisdom such as it is
For if you are wise,
Your words will stay afloat in a sea of incompetence
As potential salvation to someone
And if you are not
Some other soul who has been set free
Will utter words to save you

*A phrase from the Alexander Pope poem An Essay on Man

**…nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces (Matthew 7:6)

The Technical Crackpot

O have you heard of the Technical Crackpot
Who derides the sun and the wind?
He will babble on in his Hanging Garden
Say the sun doesn’t always shine
And the wind doesn’t always blow
So the power of the sun
And the strength of the wind
He just doesn’t want to know
And then with a twist if you get my gist
He does a confusing turn about
Soon with a tune that is linked to the moon
He gives technology a shout
His elocution is electrocution
As it gives every listener a shock
He says fire and drought, storm and flood
Can be easily nipped in the bud
All you need is yet to be invented technology
Whereupon people like you and me
Think his need is clinical psychology
How on earth can you save the earth
With inventions yet to be invented?
Such a plan has so little worth
And the planner seems clearly demented
So there you have it
We’ll all be doomed if they vote for him
It would be a fate worse than death
Our future then would be ever so grim
And our world would be on its last breath

royciebaby