Laika

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

Laika, three-year-old street dog, tough

And hardy from surviving Russian frosts, white,

Pretty-faced – chosen for propaganda and TV feeds –

Put through gruelling, cruel even, training, learned

To submit to a tiny cage, suffer rough

Shaking and centrifuge forces, was judged the right

Calm temperament for Sputnik’s untested speeds.

But innocent, trusting little Laika earned

A terrible place in history.  Not enough

To be first to circle and to log the first sight

Of earth: the first space death must needs

Be added – no more water, and rising heat turned

The cabin into hell.  In her three orbits, and slow

Immolation, did Laika bark for Moscow snow?

(25.1.26) v 1.3

Man, It’s Been A Laugh

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

At the end of the road of what was wont to be known
As a lifespan, I find myself still in a burgeon-
ing state of would, whose instantiations have grown
Since birth, encompassing: teddy-bear surgeon,
Tadpole breeder, epiphanic sum
Doer, about-to-burst appendix emergen-
cy survivor, 11+ scholarship plum
Getter, belated pianist, maths-besotted
Undergrad, Wrangler (Senior), dumb
Quantum mechanic, Grantchester scone, jam and clotted
Cream ingester, ham-strung karateka, horse-
Rider, journo, across-Central-Asia-spotted
Wanderer; these and myriad others, without remorse
I look back on.  And forward, now, of course.

(22.1.26) v 1.1

Bach, And Chopin’s Hands

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

Toying with extreme pieces by phthisic Fred

Chopin, wrapped in a shimmering sonic web,

– His “chromatic embroidery” –  showy salon-bred

Fastidiousness painfully sutured into steel

And rubato beyond romanticism, you feel

His slim, spidery hands on yours.  Seb

Bach, in absolute contrast, has no fingers:

Agility is coerced into musical hermeneutics.  But

Cancrizans or homespun, a beauty abides; it lingers,

Heavenly, bilocating among us, cut

Back to awe-striking cerebrality, heart

And mind still cleaving.  How his compostable brain’s

Cells concocted such a height of baroque art

Humbles.  Bafflingly, though abstruse, compassion remains.

(18.1.26) v 1.4

Pushkin’s “What If?”

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

On his journey to Arzrum (to hell with Tsarist

Bans) Pushkin left scorching Georgia, attained

Heavenly Armenia, and met on the road the bizarrest

Sight: a rough ox-cart that strained

Up a steep hill, grimly conveying

A body Tbilisi-ward, victim of a slaying

By an enraged mob in Tehran (the men said).

Turned out to be his friend, Griboyed-

ov – poet, playwright (“Woe from Wit”), minor

Composer, wounded duellist, and lastly late

Ambassador to the perfidious Persian court.  His fate-

Filled exit was “instant and beautiful” – none finer,

Pushkin wrote.  But their posthumous meeting was fake,

Just another “what if?” artists make.

(11.1.26) v 1.01