common idioms (revised)

he who laughs last
laughs worryingly fast

you’re skating on thin ice
climate change – nice

let sleeping dogs lie
unless they’re on Inflacam and basically high

the elephant in the room
when you’ve told them it’s only dogs you groom

catch more flies with honey than vinegar
no wonder the neighbours think you’re sinister

you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth
but didn’t have a clue what he was on about

it’s not rocket science
see your course supervisor for further guidance

you’re the apple of my eye
but I’m a gardener not an ophthalmologist, FYI

take everything with a pinch of salt
high blood pressure comes as default

have a monkey on your back
when you went IN to monkey world with a rucksack

barking up the wrong tree
anger management classes start on Monday

plenty more fish in the sea
not for much longer unfortunately

cold hands
no gloves

a history of everything in three acts

I
in the beginning there wasn’t that much
just a whole lotta nothing & nowhere & such
till a big bang sprang right outta the chasm
in an unexpected creation spasm
(though why you’d interrupt infinite snoozing
is actually the thing I find most confusing)

II
after a while humans jumped up
fashioned tools and got quite pumped up
thought themselves the absolute nuts
quickly jogging from caves to huts
cities, castles, countries, kingdoms
hunting deer to bumping incomes

III
invented gods who were smart like them
so armies could rampage and say amen
all the while using the earth like a pit
for mining more stuff and then burying it
till the universe said the experiment’s dead
turned out the lights and went back to bed

the last, great breakfast

the climate degrades at increasing pace
the sea moves in and obliterates
vast tracts of land at alarming rates
as famine and war proliferates
and billionaires hide in city states
with their private militia at the gates
but suddenly there’s nowhere left to escape
this one last cataclysmic shake
and there’s just one billionaire left to take
a soft boiled egg with the bread they’ve baked
but there’s no one left to articulate
the beautiful light on the burning estate
and realising mankind’s mistake too late
he blows out his brains on his breakfast plate

messages home

look! the light from all those systems
is billions of light years old
I savour each sweet photon
with arrays of beryllium and gold
but ask me if God had a hand in it all
hey! save it for the Pope
your big beard theory
is weird, sincerely
laughs the James Webb Deep Space Telescope

I’ll send you back the data
so you can analyse the gases
and clarify the pictures
of galaxies in their masses
but ask me why humans destroy their world
well – it’s WAY beyond my scope
all that stuff
is far too tough
sighs the James Webb Deep Space Telescope

I track each ancient target
to see how far they’ve roamed
as I sail my lonely orbit
a million miles from home
ask me to turn and evaluate Earth?
sorry, you haven’t a hope
there was plenty of time
to read the signs
cries the James Webb Deep Space Telescope