Rita's rather pleased with herself becuase she's managed to find a book of the poems of the Glaswegian poet, Edwin Morgan. He was a bit of a favourite of hers at university (she's always happiest in the company of Scots). Whilst she's busy with some sewing, I thought I have a read, and I have to say, I'm impressed. It is a sign of a good artist when their work doesn't date. Here is a poem about high energy particle physics written in 1979, it has not become cringey with the passing of the years.
Particle Poem (6)
Their mausoleum
is a frozen slient flack.
The fractured tracks,
photographed, docket
dead dogfights,
bursts of no malice.
Almost pure direction
points its stream,
deflected, detected.
Better than ogam
or cuneiform the tracer
of telling particles
fans out angrily
itself, itself, itself-
who we were
were here, here,
we died at the crossroads
or we defected
or we raced ahead
to be burnt out.
Faint paths hardly score,
yet shake the lens, end
in lucider mosaics
of theory. Go,
bid the soldiers shoot.
Particle tracks...
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