Flying Gallop

Before Eadweard Muybridge

came along

most painters painted

their horses wrong.

When galloping, galloping

at great speed,

where would they paint the

legs of their steed?

We can hear when they gallop

and gallop at pace

there’s a break in the sound,

like their feet are in space.

So we know from this galloping

galloping sound,

there’s a time when all hooves

are NOT on the ground.

Like a carousel horse

with its legs all-stretched-out,

most artists made horse-legs

the wrong way about.

Then Muybridge’s movie

closed the affair.

Horse-legs are TUCKED

when all in the air.

Perched high on a horse,

we can’t really tell

as it’s hard to see where

a horse’s legs dwell.

And a galloping gallop’s like

flying as well.

So let’s soar on a horse

on a carousel!

Inspired by The Horse in Motion movie by EadweardMuybridge 1878
http://100photos.time.com/photos/eadweard-muybridge-horse-in-motion

Growing Teeth

That wily smiley crocodile

when basking in the tropic sun

won’t care two hoots about his teeth.

One breaks – he’ll grow another one.

The scary shark has teeth galore.

Three thousand stored inside his face.

He won’t get sore if one falls out.

A spare tooth simply takes its place.

The terrapins and turtles each

have zero teeth within their head.

They crop and bite the sea-grass with

a sharp and horny beak instead.

A human has two sets of teeth.

The first grow while we’re still quite young

yet start to fall out one by one

as adult teeth push through the gums.

But that’s the lot. We grow no more,

no matter how antique we get.

So better keep them clean and bright

unless you want a plastic set!

No Drama Banana!

A dribble-free fruit

without stones, pips or seeds

whose skin will peel off

with the greatest of ease

revealing a pillar

of creamy-white pulp

which squashes to slime

that’s rewarding to gulp.

Potassium, Calcium

Vitamin C,

no trace of cholesterol,

it’s mostly fat-free.

You have to admit

that it’s simply no drama

to scoff your way through

any Queensland Banana!

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Bash and Flash

I’ve got a see-through bouncy ball

with little lights inside its core.

So when I bounce it on the ground

those lights all flash and spin around.

I think it’s got a battery

to give those lights some energy.

Then when it’s hit, it’s like a switch

that turns those lights on in a twitch.

They don’t stay on for very long

but every bounce will switch them on.

Unless the battery goes flat …

but my ball hasn’t got to that.

I want to see my ball in flight

and watch those pretty flashing lights

so bounce it hard, with all my might

upon the concrete drive at night.

My energy from that strong throw

means, at the point I let it go,

it’s got kinetic energy

that’s greater than just gravity.

And when my ball has hit the ground

some energy converts to sound.

Like rapping once upon a drum

it makes a bang and short soft hum.

I watched those lights flash as it zoomed

towards the starry sky and moon.

So do you think I set it free

to fly off for eternity?

Or will it soon return to me

attracted by Earth’s gravity?

The lights stopped flashing. All was black.

I didn’t see it coming back …

Until it hit me on the chin

then all those lights went flash and spin.

But while I held my jaw in pain

those pesky lights went out again!

I couldn’t find my flash new ball.

It must have travelled on a roll.

I’ll have to wait until it’s day

to find it so that we can play.

Spring in the Arctic

came two weeks early

and Barnacle geese

had to race to keep up.

No more stopping

for rests on their journey.

Three thousand k’s

is a humungous hop.

They cruise at the speed

we’d drive through town

with short bursts of

ninety-five k’s or so.

Marathon flyers

in feathers and down,

with climate changed seasons

just watch them go!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931881-100-climate-change-is-forcing-geese-to-give-up-pit-stops-when-they-migrate/

Coco Cough-not

A wintery cough

can feel rather tough.

Persistent and hacking

it sends our smiles packing

then steals counted sheep

so we can’t get to sleep.

Now would you cheer up

to know help’s in a cup?

It turns out that coco

all jolly and ho-ho

can soothe our cough ills

even better than pills.

This chocolate goldmine

contains theobromine

and as we’d expect,

has no ill-effects.

With this coco-cough link

have a hot chocolate drink!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/1919209-persistent-coughs-melt-away-with-chocolate/

An ingredient in chocolate may actually be a more effective cough medicine than traditional remedies, a new study suggests.

Queen Of Dried Fruit  

A sultan many years ago

was lounging on his patio

and eating grapes fresh from the vine

that had a mellow yellow shine.

A sultan is a kind of king

who never cleans up anything.

He didn’t finish all the bunch

before he went inside for lunch.

His naughty servants didn’t care

and left the plate of grapes out there.

With all the sun and wafting breeze

those grapes dried to the size of peas.

Their wrinkly skins now golden brown

provoked the king to make a frown.

But thinking they were some new treat

those old dry grapes he tried to eat!

The servants feared he might get ill

then one of them he’d want to kill.

But as he chewed he tapped his feet

then said, Yum-yum.  They taste so sweet!

Their name’s sultana, like my wife.

The queen of all that’s sweet in life.

But was it that he also knew

she’d soon go brown and wrinkly too?

Europa’s Secrets by Celia Berrell

There’s hope Europa has a sea

where living things could really be

because this moon of Jupiter

has lots of solid ice water.

The pictures of Europa show

a crusty surface white as snow

with many lines and ridges mixed

like ice sheets that have cracked and fixed.

As Jupiter’s great gravity

distorts Europa’s cavity

that energy and friction heats

and melts some water underneath.

We think this frozen water layer

could make a sea that’s hiding there.

So just below that crusty shell

it’s possible some microbes dwell.

Or what if it turns out to hold

some animals both weird and bold

that roam Europa’s chilly sea.

True aliens to you and me!

First published in Scientriffic (March 2011)

Reproduced with permission of CSIRO

www.doublehelix.csiro.au 

Discovering life exists in places beyond Earth – like Jupiter’s icy moon Europa – could be a reality in our lifetime.  Thinking about it makes my imagination run wild!  What will these creatures be like?

The first ever spacewalk  

In March of 1965

Alexi Leonov survived

the zero pressure out in space

and won the human spacewalk race.

500 k above our world

Alexi floated, spun and twirled.

He felt just like a grain of sand;

a tiny speck in space so grand.

His Russian air-filled space-suit soon

expanded like a big balloon.

Calamity.  He’s now too big

to fit inside the capsule rig!

He’d lost the use of glove and boot;

was forced to leak air from his suit.

Intense twelve minutes: fear and fun.

He made it home.  The race was won