A VARIEGATE

Only Disconnect

“ I sought a theme and sought for it in vain.”

So as a consequence I proceeded, lacking one,

Occasionally inserting titles as signposts.

The Past

Of course this is the paradox

with the James Webb telescope:

We are looking for signs of life

but if found they are so far back in time

that by now they must have changed –

Just as someone there looking towards earth

might see signs of single-cell organisms

or dinosaurs – and have no way of knowing

the dinosaurs have become cats and blackbirds

and blackbirds are singing and several cats

are presently jumping down from their beds,

as the radio is playing the Choral Symphony.

Google Poem

Dear Doctor Google,

Thanks to your ministrations

I am feeling a whole lot

better and getting back my appetite

for enjambement.

Your 24-hour service

is certainly without equal

and it has led me,

curiously enough, to the thought

of a new kind of poem.

Yes. Are

you still there? Of course you are.

Based on the experience

of reading other poems, say,

‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, where

improving lessons on ship maintenance

(and religious application) may be had,

or ‘Apple Picking’ by Robert Frost

– where a little additional research

may yield valuable pointers

in Apple Cultivation –

it has struck me

that your organisation stands ready

to offer on an unprecedented scale

(unprecedented being Word of the Week)

information, experience, pictures,

a whole paperless chase of references

which the poem might organise

and then transmit. What I am proposing

is the Google Poem

the poem whose secondary purpose

(at least – but perhaps one might

rate this even more highly) is to direct

interested readers to related vistas.

For example

(and this – see Fine Print –

is merely a Hypothetical)

let us construct a Typical Instance

where the poem opens a window

as follows: (Starting now.)

(Sample Only)

All you hurrahing in harvest harvesters,

come in from the fields

for a meal break. You are

already rich in natural Accretions,

but add to these by firing up

the wood-fired computer in the barn.

Then type in

‘Florine Stettheimer Paintings’.

‘Never heard of her.’ ‘Just do it.’

A modernist painter and poet

she worked in unusually bright colours

and with complicated subjects.

She exhibited only once.

A generous selection awaits you. Interested?

Now this is the Hypothetical Google Poem.

(Further Sample)

Type ‘Gyorgy Kurtag Bach BWV 687’

‘Who he?’ Hungarian Modernist, now aged 99.

Watch his sublime Bach transcription

performed by the composer and his late wife Marta

with excessive affectionate hand crossing.

‘I’ll do it.’ For cyberspace is almost like

treading the corridors of pervasive metaphor.

And whereas at the time of Wordsworth

the Poem relied on his providing

images and facts and thought bubbles,

now, with the Resources of Modern Technology,

might not the poem incorporate recommendations

and websites to visit – resources

which are only a click away?

The possibilities of the Google Poem

are virtually limitless and depend

only on the Poetry Reader

maintaining adequate Anti-Virus programs.

And Doctor,

before I log off, I must say

I have been experiencing a ringing in the ears

and serious eyestrain. What would you suggest?

Index of First Lines

Able was I

The aquilegia’s ribboned bangs

A friend as Macduff in that heartfelt scene

Avocadoes cut and twisted while you wait

Awe-expiring sky

The bird flew away from its metaphor

The camel pauses to drink at the needle’s eye

The graveyard by the sea falling into the sea

The higher the moon the wider

How was it that we didn’t notice Ozymandias

Individuation, give me excess of it

In minus five minutes your train arrives.

Millponds exist only in similes

Niagara indoors

Now or, rather, now, that is to say, now

One morning when the other mornings had passed

Right on time the moon rose

The rose with its own concordance

Stopping for coffee by the sea

Strelitzias giving the thumbs-up

Umbelliferous, if I may make so bold

Walking in Imperial measure with larger steps

Waterfall and behind its beaded curtain

We asked the outdoors in.

Spot the Difference

In the second picture,

two of the animals

and five of the people are missing

from the bus shelter.

And in the second picture,

what may well be an earthquake

has opened a deep crevasse

in front of the bus shelter.

In the second picture

the row of oaks

is missing from the road

in front of the church.

In the second picture

what is probably a cormorant

but may be a vulture

is swaying on the stanchion.

In the second picture

there is a four-leafed clover

in the lawn

at the feet of the commuters.

An Analogy

To determine the number of ways

that any number, n, can be expressed

as the sum of smaller numbers

is a result easily proposed

but not easily proven.

These are called partitions.

The general result for all n

Is due to Ramanujan and Hardy.

For example,

In the case where n=5

We could have 1+1+1+1+1

or 1+1+1+2

or 1+1+3

or 1+2+2

or 1+4

or 2+3

and it will be clear

that as n increases

and we attempt to partition

larger and larger numbers,

the number of possibilities

increases hugely. It was the triumph

of Ramanujan and Hardy to discover

the general formula for all n.

Now consider these multiplicities

as being like windwaves

across a wide expanse of ocean

on a day of sun and light breezes.