The Silk Map (a soldier’s tale)

Your heart is like a silk map,

Of the sort used by soldiers

Behind enemy lines.

No folds.

No creases.

No mark of any kind,

So no one knows your intentions

Or what you’ve left behind.

Neither friends nor enemies are identified.

 

You travel light, leaving no trace.

Footprints are blown away on the wind.

I wish to follow but cannot keep pace,

It is the heartless viagra canada leading the blind.

 

Storms and sunsets built on sand,

Leaving no impression,

Move quickly over borders with no name.

Lost and hungry and with no direction,

The wolves are happy that I came.

 

The fire I lit under your facade

Soon turned to ashes in your hand.

I gently roll our love away and pocket the remains.

No folds.

No creases.

No mark of any kind.

 

Virginia

Virginia Woolf  1882-1941

 

You went down to the river

With stones in your pockets

And did not intend to return.

The water took you back to the womb

And all you’d asked for was a room

Of your own

And some quiet,

No demons,

Words flowing on the page.

 

Stones in your pockets

To silence the voices.

 

The river does not argue

Or judge

Or suggest

Or put up a fight.

 

A room of one’s own,

Ideas,

Paper,

Peace.

 

Stones in your pockets,

The river offers

Silence,

Oblivion,

Release.

 

And women everywhere hang on every word

In a room of our own,

Ideas,

Paper,

Struggle,

Try to live up to.

 

But one morning.

You put your coat on

And never came back.

 

One morning,

The river covered you

And the words never fade,

Ideas,

Paper,

Afraid.

Stones in our pockets

Always weighing us down,

Ideas,

Paper,

Hope.

 

And that river runs forever,

Through all of our battles,

Some are lost and some are won.

Some of us sink and some of us are saved,

Words viagra pills floating on the page,

The words never fade.

 

Ideas,

Paper

And it’s done.

 

 

 

Heroes

 

(i) What We Were Told

 

The teachers smell of mothballs,

They’ve all shed their summer skins.

 

They grow coffee in Brazil.

The French took that hill.

 

I painted my still life apples

As best I could and made them

Look polished and rosy

But they all fell to the floor

And rolled out the door

Knocking the headmaster over.

 

So go ahead,

Be a hero,

Shout bang bang

And fall down dead.

They sent you home in a wooden box,

Closed your eyes, screwed down the lid.

You never got into the history books

But Nelson sees you with his one good eye

And gives a welcome for the war weary on high.

They never built a statue to you

For the pigeons to crap on,

Well never mind.

Ghandi is in heaven now and he is kind.

 

Your mother dusts your photograph

Every day and wonders where you are,

Doesn’t she know you’re in heaven now,

Drinking at the heroes’ bar,

Drinking at the nectar fountain,

Now you are content.

No bombs here but “I Love You Jesus” badges

And flowers pass for rent.

No countries here or flags to wave,

Everyone’s a real person,

Everyone is saved.

 

Heaven is a state of mind,

The gate is found within,

We shall all meet on the ledge

And sing “Jerusalem”.

Hell is a state of mind,

Brother against brother,

Hot fires burn your bones,

The Devil is what you see in the mirror,

The bats that fly in your nightmares,

The snake that bites between the legs,

The fly on the wall saw it all,

It dropped on its back and begged.

 

When death knocks on the door,

Shall we beg for more,

Not sure of the outcome,

The last parade, the lights fade,

When they draw the curtains,

Your fate is sealed,

The party’s over though you never dreamed,

You hear the rats on the roof,

The King’s horse on the hoof,

The hunting party is grinning,

They’ve bagged your soul.

 

(ii)  What We Know

 

The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes,

Rain, Steam and Speed,

Christina’s World

Under Milk Wood,

Dean Moriarty,

Steppenwolf,

Cal Trask.

 

 

 

Scientists Look to Create an Artificial Hamburger. Yum Yum?

We have now reached a new plane of science as the Dutch have managed to begin creating an artificial hamburger.

Dutch scientists are producing strips of muscle tissue using stem cells, as we speak, in order to create the first hamburger grown in a lab. The estimated end to this project is later this year, but don’t be expecting them in shops soon as the cost of this project is a gigantic £200,000.

But why are they wasting their time trying to create a hamburger? No, it’s not to challenge the global fastcrap shack that is McDonald’s, but it’s to help with the problem of an increasingly large and hungry population. And you never know, it may even prove to be an alternative to killing animals.

Professor Mark Post, while at a major science meeting in Canada. touted the possibility of introducing synthetic meat into wider society by saying that the concept could eventually decrease the footprint of meat on the environment by an incredible 60%.

Professor Post, who is running the experiment with his group at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, is carrying out the experiment by growing pieces of off-white muscle which are 1cm in width, 1mm thick, and roughly 2cm long in small bowls.

Artificial Hamburger
Is this the future of meat?

It’s expected that the strips will then be soaked with fat, which has also been artificially grown, and blood to grow a hamburger. The hamburger is expected to be completed by autumn of 2012.

The professor also commented that he was attempting to get Heston Blumenthal, the celebrity chef, to cook it for him. But he did say that the burger will taste quite bland as flavour is not really the priority at the moment.

Despite the high price, Professor Post did claim that he was confident that as production lines are sorted out the cost would come down. So it’s possible that synthetic meat could become a resource of the future. And this is incredibly timely as estimates say that the world’s food production will need to double within the next half-century in order to keep up with demand.

Professor Sean Smukler of the University of British Columbia also stressed the importance of this experiment as he claims that farmers will find it particularly difficult to keep up with demand as the amount of farmable land on the planet has been reduced dramatically.

At the moment the future looks bright when it comes to synthetic meat, as Professor Post confidently asserts that it will become more efficient than meat produced in a natural way. Currently there is an efficiency rate of 15% when it comes to producing natural meat, and synthetic meat is aiming for 50%.

The President of Earthsave Canada, David Steele, wasn’t so enthusiastic about the project, though. He claimed that instead of creating synthetic meat, which could be unhealthy due to the number of chemicals required to stop it from rotting, people could just eat less meat.

Now, while this would be a viable option in an ideal world, we have to remember one thing: most people couldn’t care less about the problems of the world unless it’s having a direct effect on them. It’s harsh, but people are generally unwilling to compromise on their own quality and luxury unless the problem is shoved directly in their faces.

And all of this means that the Dutch could be on to a winner here. The Germans may have had the Hamburger named after one of their cities, but it looks like their cultural archrivals have revolutionised it.

Switzerland Takes a Break from Making Watches to Clean Up Space

Finally the Swiss have put down their watches and they are now entering the field of science once again. Currently space researchers within the small European state are seeking funds to build a spacecraft which can grab pieces of space garbage and drag them down into the atmosphere so it automatically burns up in a colossal ball of fire.

Clean Space One

So far the researchers at the Swiss Space Centre of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have been working on their master plan for three years, according to the director Volker Gass. They have the technology, they are seeking the funds, and they have their first possible target of a picosatellite named ‘SwissCube’ which was launched back in 2009.

The only problem is that to build the spacecraft, which has been prematurely named as ‘CleanSpaceOne’, will require a whopping $11 million to create and then another three to five years until launch. Clearly there is no austerity in Switzerland then!

Even though it sounds crazy, something does have to be done as space rubbish is becoming a large problem for humanity as more and more fragments of our junk is now heading back towards earth or coming into contact with some of our existing space structures. At the moment NASA is tracking 16,000 objects which are larger than 10cm, and that’s not forgetting the numerous smaller objects which could easily kill someone if they didn’t burn up whilst re-entering our atmosphere.

The new spacecraft will be used to remove larger pieces of space debris which are causing problems for astronauts. The Swiss space module will use a semi-automatic probe and a highly-technical guidance system to latch on to targets which could be travelling at speeds of up to 28,000 km/h, before its ion microthrusters will bring the craft alongside it. And that’s when the Swiss gripper will cuddle the object like a murderous Swiss octopus before the object’s final fiery destruction.

This all sounds pretty simple when it’s written down in front of you, however there are other problems which Gass outlines. The main problems, according to Gass, is that once the piece of debris has been snagged the combination of debris and craft will then have a different centre of gravity which could cause it to spin out of control. In order to survive, the probe will have to be able to stabilise itself so it can guide itself back on to the atmosphere’s curve.

The final result, Gass hopes, is that there will be a number of these craft which can act as a battalion of space maids, however at the rate we release garbage it’s doubtful that they would be able to keep up. If we can’t clean our own planet then how are we going to clean space? But, hey, maybe we can send it on to someone else instead in the true human spirit?

Film Review: “Carnage”

Carnage is perhaps a hyperbole. The implied connotations may give you different expectations of this movie, and not all of them will be met. It’s remarkable how so much damage can be inflicted through mere words, and this film explores that, accompanied by a quartet of bitingly sharp performances from its leads.

Though the movie takes place in a Manhattan apartment, it was in actual fact filmed in Paris, due to Roman Polanski’s inability to step foot in the USA. This has never prevented him from working with the best actors available, and making some of the greatest films of the last 50 years. Though his magnum opus remains Chinatown, made almost 40 years ago now, his work is as relevant today as it was back then.

 

The movie is a screen adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘God Of Carnage’. This is evident in the way Polanksi has bizarrely made use of space and time. With the exception of the opening and closing credits, the movie doesn’t stray from the apartment of Mr and Mrs Longstreet (John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster). Reluctantly joining them is upper-class couple, Mr and Mrs Cowan (Christophe Waltz and Kate Winslet). The reason for their occupying the same space is their children. Zachary, belonging to the Cowan’s, has smashed Ethan, belong to the Longstreet’s, around the face with a stick. The conversation flows politely in its early exchanges, a brief moment of silence here and there, or whenever Alan (Waltz) is ‘forced’ to remove himself and answer his incessantly-ringing cellphone.

 

The power here is how it develops. We open with a shady state of equilibrium; a state that has to smoothly cross into the realms of the eponymous carnage. This is orchestrated with masterful work from Polanski, giving his actors just that little bit extra to work with, deftly timing each event that takes place to occur precisely when it needs to. The running time of the movie is just over an hour, as is the on-screen narrative.

 

It’s a character study of considerable depth; at first, each of them displays signs of accustomed social conventions. Nancy (Winslet) feels inclined to enquire about the apartment she finds herself in, as well as the different displays of culture which Penelope (Foster) has laid out, primarily on her luxurious coffee table. Alan and Michael (C. Reilly) discuss their jobs, picking apart each other’s livelihood through polite, yet slightly strained dialogue, which is to lead someplace darker.

 

Bit by bit, shot by shot, Polanksi manipulates happenings to his will, sparks begin to fly, and tempers begin to flare. Put together by their children’s childish behaviour, the four parents exhibit their own infantine dispositions by hurling verbal put-downs at each other. They belittle, they snarl, they vomit, they drink, they scoff, they drink more, they sob, they turn on their own spouses, they drink even more, they smoke. It doesn’t ever reach what I would call ‘carnage’, but it certainly inhabits a space nearby.

 

As you’d expect, the script is solid enough to keep an audience satisfied for 70minutes, but the four actors, Winslet and Foster in particular, exude unmatched ability in being able to distort themselves over and over again, finely treading, but never crossing, the line between radical depiction and parody. They are all cynics, expecting next to nothing from their opponents; they won’t budge on their opinions, and a considerable amount of care is put into the way they act within the different circumstances Polanksi throws their way. It’s a refreshingly honest piece of work, but not funny enough to be considered comedy. It’s a movie worth watching, but don’t expect to be enlightened, amused, or entertained. This is a movie about character; it’s peculiar and comes off with an odd taste, but it’s impeccably acted, and masterfully directed.