Unreality

Unreality

I must be mad that such intrusive
thoughts my mind confound, or be
it spirits and good wine that
rend a man spellbound? For I
fear that nothing here is what
it seems. The universe is
but a mirage full of dreams.

In truth there can be nothing real
about this place when all I see
is photons bouncing off some energy
in space, just images displayed
upon the atoms of a screen
whilst I am but a phantom
in a shadow-weaver’s dream.

Yon lass with eyes that flash like Venus
on a frosty night is nothing
but a flicker in the ever
passing light. And you my friend are
but a mass of quarks and leptons
spinning crazy in their arcs.

These thoughts are but electrons in
a proton-maze of nerves where
nothing can exist until
a retina observes. When I
depart these sparks will cease to
flash within my brain. Then all I am
and was will ne’er be seen again.

Empires

Empires

Triremes of Claudius go speeding out of Gaul,
charged with taming Albion, fiery Celtic queen,
then civilise and modernise
with unity and roads,
to leave a lasting legacy where Rome has been.

Bold privateers of Devon, harnessing the wind.
Buccaneers with cutlasses plunder Spanish pelf
then bequeath the world a language,
democracy and law,
bonding scattered people in a vast Commonwealth.

Bureaucrats of Brussels, inept scions of Rome,
with bloated pay and pension cosseting a life
of bumbledom and jargon,
in quangos that cascade
unedifying orders, sowing seeds of strife.