BIG QUESTION

Dear old Parramatta

is full of Big Data:

much digital matter –

on a ‘lectric platter.

Not just one at a time

but a zill on a dime!

Bits in a paradigm,

ten billion re a crime.

So, will they help to solve,

progressively evolve

skills to then resolve

problems that won’t dissolve?

Now, are these data real,

or cleverly conceal

what’s true within a deal

inside a frame of steel?

One day they will control:

when they are on a roll,

we’ll be on the dole.

Be worried for your soul!

IN PRAISE OF PANCAKES

They may not be capable of developing

new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis

or given to existential dispute,

but their ability to bring joy to taste buds,

and, in fulsome quantity,

fill the tummy with fluffy calories

for breakfast, with bacon and maple syrup,

is second to none.

They are not staple enough

(like bread)

to have been part of the Last Supper

but when I consider

how my Last Breakfast might be spent

I favour it being among family and friends,

each comforted by the sheer delight

of a generous serve.

VALE

Rosewood.  The silver handles

will be removed before the fire

but the flowers on the lid,

dust of incense, drops of holy water

will remain, keep his body company –

our final, inadequate benediction.

Now the process is anonymous –

the coffin sinks:

the men who light and they who stoke,

who slide it into the oven,

are without names

and they don’t know his.

We knew and he knew the cancer’s name:

it was devilishly clever,

relentless, finding its obstructing way

around stents and into lumens.

It declared conquest over his unconscious form

last Friday.  Pyrrhic, it seemed to me.

After the mass and committal, we who are left

assemble outside in the winter wind

view one another’s wrinkles

take note of obvious infirmities

count ourselves lucky to be alive –

well – sort of.

de Chardin said as we grow old

we are increasingly penalized

for a crime we did not commit.

But the punishment is for our original sin,

of being born, of our temerity

in playing gods for three score years and ten.