Your Poems 2013

Including poems from a Creature Features presentation at Mt Garnet; Volcanoes for Science On The Oval; Sunshine from Cairns Junior Eisteddfod; Mitosis, Synaesthesia, Quantum Reality and prehistoric monsters!

Kinrara Station is about 110km south of Mt Garnet where Robyn can be found mustering cattle.  She submitted this poem for a Creature Features Poetry Quiz.  Do you know what this animal is?

 

 

 

Puggle Puzzle
by Robyn O’Brien

My spiky hair is like your nails
but I only have a tiny tail.
My nose is long and covered in dirt
but unless you’re an ant, you won’t get hurt.

Some say my name is quite extreme.
I belong to the family Monotreme.
A single egg hatched in ten days.
Born blind and hairless, in a daze.

After I’m born, they call me a Puggle
and in Mama’s pouch I love to snuggle.
My hairy spines grow in three to four weeks.
Then snuggling mother could cause some shrieks!

 

Ché lives and works on a station in remote northern Queensland and participated in a poetry session I held at Mount Garnet State School in August 2013.  I loved Ché’s poem about the biggest flower in the world – Rafflesia arnoldii.

 

 

 

Flies In Utopia
by Ché Damant

The jungle is where I silently sit.
Flies and bugs all around me flit.
From far, a beauty beyond compare.
But get too close?  You shouldn’t dare.

My scarlet flesh is ripe and raw.
Its putrid smell will rot your core.
But carrion-flies I will torment.
They just adore my deathly scent!

 

Blowing Up A Riddle by Harmonie
Whitfield State School

I’m an underwater mountain
In the middle of the sea
And if you want to scuba dive
It’s possible you’ll find me.

When boiling magma gets too hot
Too hot for me to bear
I blow my top and I erupt
Sending ash into the air.

But when I am doing this
Magma has a different name
It’s known as lava, even though
The two things are the same.

When magma is still underground
It makes my insides rumble
When it’s bursting out as lava
My outsides start to crumble.

If you haven’t solved this riddle
I’m a mountain that might blow
So better heed my warning signs
For I’m a VOL-CAN-O!

 

Sunshine by Harmonie
Whitfield State School

Sunshine is an ingredient
In most nature recipes
Like beautiful coloured blossoms
On a jacaranda tree.

Sleeping in the winter
They are woken up by spring
And as the purple colour forms
You’ll hear birds start to sing.

A recipe for beauty
Always contains the Sun
And when it comes to nature
Sunlight is number one.

When a butterfly shows its colours
There’s just one thing it needs
Coz it’s nothing like a flower
Or some itty-bitty seeds.

Now here is the ingredient
And this the butterfly knows:
Sunshine is the only thing
That makes its colours show.

Another nature recipe
Is photosynthesis
All plants must use the sunlight
When they are doing this.

Nothing on Earth would be alive
Without photosynthesis
Because the plants make oxygen
And we need it to exist.

And yet another recipe
Is energy from sunlight
Which everything on Earth uses
By day, if not by night.

We use the Sun’s energy
For more than just its light
But the Sun’s not powered by batteries,
That cannot be right!

If you have solar panels
Then you would use the Sun
It would be your power source
That’s how your lights would run!

But the best thing about sunlight
Is how it makes me feel inside
To me, when the Sun is out
The world is open wide.

On those perfect sunny days
We like to have some fun
But there’s someone we ought to thank
Yep, that’s right  –  the Sun!

 

Greg Crowther is Acting Assistant Professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington in USA.  His web pages include music scores, videos and lyrics he’s created about science.  Here’s some science lyrics Greg has written about cell division.

Mitosis
by Greg Crowther

Mitosis is a process (mitosis is a process)
by which a cell divides (by which a cell divides).
A sequence of four phases (a sequence of four phases)
by which it must abide (by which it must abide).

CHORUS:
Prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase
(prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase)
Prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase
(prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase).

Now prophase is the first phase (now prophase is the first phase)
the chromosomes appear (the chromosomes appear).
In metaphase they line up (in metaphase they line up)
at the middle of the sphere (at the middle of the sphere).

CHORUS

The chromosomes are split up (the chromosomes are split up)
as anaphase goes by (as anaphase goes by).
And telophase then seals ’em (and telophase then seals ’em)
in brand-new nuclei (in brand-new nuclei).

CHORUS

 

Laura lives in London, England and shares her experiences with having Synaesthesia (where two or more of our senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, smell – respond to a stimulus most of us would only identify with one sense).

 

This Thing Called Synaesthesia
by Laura Hindley, UK

“That smells like Beethoven!” I excitedly exclaimed to my class at school.
To which they sniggered, poked fun and continued to be cruel.
I, of course, knew what I was talking about completely
and gritted my teeth whilst forcing myself to smile sweetly.
The object of controversy lay ever so still on my wooden desk.
Gleaming with yumminess, very soon to become a crumbly mess.
The Christmas Pudding still emanated a classical tune
with which Handel and Bach would have both been over the moon.
Misunderstood by most people who witness my quirky senses and thoughts
little do they know how the miscommunication in my brain renders me rather fraught.

Oh how my life would be much easier
if I didn’t have this thing called Synaesthesia.

Just the other day I had a friend round to my house for tea.
I asked “Does your chip butty taste like circles?  Or is that just me?”
Since a look of pure confusion passed across his animated face
I quickly took back my tangled remarks with a great amount of haste!
He told me that his sandwich only tasted of bread and chips
followed by a request to teach him how to taste shapes and even give him some tips.
I explained that my brain was just wired in such a way
causing my sense to cross over, with me unable to have any say.
The astonishment in my friend’s face made me feel like a super-hero!
Not the loser from school who felt like a complete zero.

Now my life is becoming much easier
Because I have this little thing called Synaesthesia.

I’ve become quite a celebrity within my school it would seem.
Especially when I say that Mrs Munro’s lessons sound like the colour green.
Instead of laughing at my condition, children stand rooted to the spot, amazed.
They’re asking me questions repeatedly.  I’ve become quite a craze!
I excitedly skip to school every morning with new stories to tell my friends
of how my Mum’s chicken curry tastes like a rectangle with pointy ends.
I feel sorry for the children who pine for my super-powers
and pretend that they can taste sweets when looking at flowers.
This is a gift that I would definitely never wish away again
for I wouldn’t be as happy with my life if I had a different brain.

Why did I ever want my life to be easier?
I’m blessed with this little thing called Synaesthesia.

Merrissa shares her love of physics, chemistry, astronomy and everything mysterious with her two daughters (including this poem about Quantum Reality).  Her passion is creating glow-in-the-dark jewellery with her husband at Clover 13 in Texas USA.

Quantum Reality
by Merrissa Sorrentino, Grand Prarie

When we start peering deep inside the tiniest of things
far beyond what human eyes are capable of seeing
the sub-atomic world defies the laws of entropy
and particles begin to act with uncertainty.
If we measure one’s velocity, position or its mass
it causes other magnitudes to become less exact.
A photon for example may just simply disappear.
The act of observation makes its outcome more unclear.
A particle of light can also double as a wave.
A duality that’s sure to leave you scratching at your brain.
It comes down to this.  Of the view we once had;
what wasn’t now is, what is will soon pass.
Physics and light-speed, black holes and time.
All of these seem to be intertwined.
Like the fabric of space bent around a large mass
the gravity of this can be hard to grasp.
It will make you go mad, then beg for some more.
That’s what all those crazy equations are for!
Will we ever find a theory for all?
One that unites the large with the small?
Or will it continue to boggle our minds?
Forever entangled between space and time.

American published poet Kevin D Taylor has written a sonnet inspired by Alfred Tennyson’s The Kraken – only Kevin’s poem is about a real monster that lived during the Cretaceous Period.  Around 100 million years ago this formidable reptilian predator swam in the seas whilst dinosaurs roamed on the land.

Find out more about the fossil Kronosaurus queenslandicus at the Australian Museum’s website.

Kronosaurus
by Kevin D Taylor

Through outspread spans of oceanic murk
While from him every fearful fish-form flees
Intrepid, to where lessers dare not lurk
Descends the ancient monarch of the seas.
Leviathan surpassing all for size
At whose first glimpse the craven pale will dread
He casts the shadow of his regal head
Across the fluid realm that is his prize.
Concourses of molluscan creatures fill
His potent jaws as masticated fare
And mingle with devoured crustaceous krill
Seized in the death grip of his agile fangs.
In depths unfathomed timelessly he hangs
Skulking and watching with an icy stare
For who is next to be his captured kill?