The Laws of Nature

By h jenkins

Tue, 03 Nov 2009
  • 1546 reads
4 comments
 

Wires spontaneously entangle themselves –
It’s one of those Laws quite immutable;
Like old pencils migrate to the Land of the Elves,
And the Chinese are always inscrutable.

Mankind in his arrogance, cannot understand
Where caprices of Nature may lead.
What happens to castles once built on the sand?
And why do only women, bleed? *

The great 'Powers That Be' have fun toying with us;
Is it part of the overall plan?
I’d like to ask God though I daren’t make a fuss,
For She’d never pay heed to a man.

Alternative line
* And why do giant pandas not breed?

Certificate U
Poem
Urbs and Spices
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by tcook on
I really like this but the two lines about the Beatles and Mandela spoil it. We know why the Beatles split and why Mandela was released - I think it needs a pair of greater imponderables in there to make it excellent.

Submitted by h jenkins on
I take your point, Tony and admit I wasn't really happy with it myself. I wanted to find a couple of things that were 'out of left field' but they don't really fit the purpose. I think I was distracted by thinking about the final point, where I imply that God, or Nature or whatever, is female but I didn't want it to be too pompous. In addition, I wanted the last line to come as a bit of a surprise which is why I used 'mankind', in order to tease the reader into thinking that I meant 'all humans' when I was actually referring to men. My use of the word 'Nature' is a kind of tease also, but the other way round, as the personification is usually female. It did occur to me that it was the women in their lives that had a great influence on the Beatles split but the Mandela thing didn't apply in that way unless one assumes that Winnie Mandela was influential when I rather suspect she wasn't. And now I've done what a poet should never do - explain himself! Oh, well ... I've put in alternative lines which are possibly slightly better. The reader shall judge. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Submitted by tcook on
And it's so nearly there - but the metre is wrong in the last line of the middle stanza. Once more back to the drawing board...

Submitted by h jenkins on
To be honest, Tony, the metre is a bit iffy throughout. I won’t bore you with my struggle to make a basic anapaestic metre work, the result speaks for itself! But thank you for pointing out the fault with the metre in that line because it caused me to review the whole thing. The two previous lines also had a metric problem which I will try to put right. So far as the line you raised with me is concerned, I’m loath to ditch it because of the relevance in the Alice Cooper song. It does work, but only if you insert a caesura between women and bleed which I admit would not be immediately obvious to the casual reader. I’m also tempted by it because that would make it a ‘feminine caesura’ which seems appropriate. Anyway, I’ll insert a comma to indicate the caesura and I’ll also post an alternative line underneath the poem, which might be more in keeping with the jocularity. Please feel free to criticize and I’d also welcome any comments from others who might be interested. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins