Poetry Please - The Mathematics of Maturity

A > B
Where A is the ability to
     provide food
                   shelter
                   toys
And B
     is job satisfaction.

X < Y
Where X is all the things I used to do
     for fun
And Y
      is the things that need to be done.

M=N
Where M is getting everything finished
And N is getting lucky
And M + N > T
     which is how much time there is in the day.

But L > Σ w
Where w
     is my trouble and my woe
And L
     is the love in my life.

Poetry Please - Nevermore

There were no cats on Noah's Ark,
When other beasts took flight,
The cats just purred and washed their fur,
And said: "We'll be alright."

Noah went to the oldest cat,
And said: "You'll all be killed!"
"Fear not for us," the cat replied,
"On the quantum wave function we shall ride,
"Out of sight, we're uncannily skilled."

"When floods are done and the water gone,
"And your Ark seeks a foreign shore,
"You may believe we all are dead,
"But you'll never be quite sure."

"Uncertainty's a powerful friend,
"If ever there's a doubt;
"The teeniest, tiniest, slightest hope,
"The cats will find it out."

Noah wept for what would be lost,
As he went back to his boat,
For though the waters would bear the Ark,
Cats, alas, do not float.

For forty days and forty nights,
All land was out of reach,
But when the world began to dry,
The eldest cat, with head held high,

Sat waiting on the beach.

So when this watery tale is told,
And they curse a blackbird craven,
Think to yourself, with all those cats,
What fate befell the raven?

Poetry Please - Impulse Shopping Blues

I couldn't, I shouldn't,
I wouldn't, I can't,
I won't and I shan't, but I might.
I'll do it, I've done it,
I did it I did,
Though it doesn't look right in this light.

Poetry Please - Rhapsody in Black

As my current webserver is closing down, I'm going to migrate some of my older writing and poetry to here, beginning with this piece, as it is apt to the date.

Rhapsody in Black

Two figures standing silent on the corner,
Sentinels of glass and steel,
Watching over their noirish dreamland,
Their home of the brave, land where nothing is free.

Lonely, mist-bound romantics,
Ghosts of the coffee-house and the opera house,
Burning a thousand warm candles in the night,
Echoes of Gershwin at the day's dawning.

Dark shapes at dusk,
Guardians of these mean streets,
Patron saints of cruelty and greed,
Paladins of cold, hard honour.

Twin pinnacles reaching for eternity,
The new mansions of millions of years,
Rooted in blood they rise in crescendo,
To dreams of highest art.

The silhouettes of an ideal,
Spectral custodians of a bygone age,
A fantasy of indomitable will,
Fallen into flame and dust.

Ivy-strewn skeletons, side-by-side,
All that remains of a once-great world,
In the cold shadow of the bomb,
Yet now they stand no more.

An empire of the mind,
Past, present,
Future,
And never was.
Gone.