Re: Only "so long" LONG!!)--A poemish send off.

[EVERETT813 at aol.com]

Dear Ralph,

Speaking of poems in your pocket: I was asleep and awakened thinking that you
should have some futuristic poems for your journey.   Thus, the following
poems from the Space Child's Mother Goose by Frederick Winsor (1958) might be
appropriate, perhaps one for each week:

Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to Postulate How.


Little Miss Muffet
Sits on her tuffet
In a nonchalant sort of way,
With her force field around her
The spider, the bounder,
Is not in the picture today.


Little Bo-Peep
Has lost her sheep,
The radar has failed to find them.
They'll all, face to face,
Meet in parallel space,
Preceding their leaders behind them.


Three jolly sailors from Blaydon-on-Tyne
They went to sea in a bottle by Klein.
Since the sea was entirely inside the hull
The scenery seen was exceedingly dull.


Plus-que-Possble, ma poule noire,
Elle pond ses oeufs dans le Quand-Provisoire.
Elle ne pond point dans une pe'riode sure
Car l'expe'rience serait bien trop dure.


Flappity, Floppity, Flip!
The Mouse on the Mobius Strip.
The Strip revolved,
The Mouse dissolved
In a chronodimensional skip.


Little Jack Horner
Sits in a corner
Extracting cube roots to infinity,
An assignment for boys
That will minimize noise
And produce a more peaceful vicinity.


Moglich-Warscheinlich, mein' Schwartzhenn',
Legt ihr Ei in das Relativwenn.
Sie legt keine Eier ins Positivdann
Weil sie postulieren nun einmal nicht kann.


(From the Greek)
I have a pet hen who name is Probable.   She lays eggs in concept, being a
sophist-bird.
But not in reality at all; those would be inferior eggs; for thought is
superior to reality.


Hey Diddle Diddle
Distribute the Middle
The Premise controls the Conclusion
The Disjunctive affirms
That the Diet of Worms
Is a Borbetomagic confusion.


Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief.
Taffy's little grandson
Teleplunders beef.

Taffy's little grandson
Cymric superlooter,
Looks angelic riding
His teledriven scooter.

Taffy's little grandson
Never leaves the village,
Stays at home in comfort
committing telepillage.

Taffy's little grandson,
Practicing psionics,
Quite surpasses Grandpa's
Obsolete kleptonics.


Titus FitzImmeter
Said, "The Planimeter
Agoragraphs a vicinity."
Herein he was right,
But he scarcely shed light
On the Circular Points at Infinity.


Hark, hark,
A static spark,
The tape is wound around
So some baboon
Can croon his tune
In Stereophonic Sound.


Embryonic, zoonic,
Tectonic, cyclonic,
We humans are never humane.
Explosion, erosion,
Corrosion, implosion---
And back into Chaos again!


Matago ya kuku mweusi, nadhani,
Ni mbali, mbele au nyuma;
Haikuta mayai kuku huku au sasa---
ni dwa hivi haipatikani.

(I suspect that the egg-laying locales of the black hen
Are far away in-front-or-behind in-either-time-or-space;
She doesn't lay eggs here on this very spot or now---
Because of this eggs are not obtainable.)

Bon Voyage', Ralph.   You are doing what I have dreamed of doing.   May it be
more than your highest hopes.

Sincerely,

Paul Everett

*
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