First Contact

Thus closes my transmission this first time.
You have atomic weights and numbers prime
Mathematic puzzles, cyphers, and equations
Observations, and a slew of emmanations
From our Astronomic art, that would
Encompass half our learning if rightly understood.

Now let's scale those other heights
Set the Universe to rights
Steal bandwidth and some precious litte time,
You imprisoned on your planet, I on mine.
You cannot know our cultures, or the customs of the place
Not our species, nor about the Human Race.
We reach across the vastness, half in hope and half in dread, to a voice unknown and features yet unseen
You'll not hear my words til after I am dead, with the gulf of many light-years in between.

Yet we are brothers, of a sort,
Kith and kin I have methought,
And intellectual equals 'neath the skin, or beit scales,
Or molusc shell, exo-skeleton avails
To protect the concious brain whose communion I crave
By dint of gamma, X, and radio wave

So, let sentient beings relate
Set the cosmic record straight,
Are we pawns, or are we masters of the game ?
Do you woo and love and mate ?
Do you war and kill and hate ?
Are your triumphs and disasters just the same ?

Is it a Universal need,
This passion to succeed,
Primordial and imprinted from our birth ?
Do you a higher order heed ?
Are you pure in thought and deed ?
Is pain and squalour just unique to Planet Earth ?

Tragedy

On deserted beach we chose to lie
All nestled on soft golden sand
The moon was high the beach was dry
The friendly cliffs to hand.

Deep our slumber, sweet our dreams
Till hurricane through our sleeping thrust
Dissecting beach with raging streams
Made mud baths of the dust

Escape I did the jaws of death
To cliffs I made the leap
My love she drew he final breath
Forever now asleep.

Lulu

Its nice, the kids at school, to sit and chat
And take a well earned rest. Not that
I don't enjoy the kids, they're such
Hard work sometimes. Not much
By way of biscuits I'm afraid
Just some plain wholesome ones I made
The children wouldn't eat. May I enquire
How Shirley's getting on now in the choir ?
Yes, Lu is doing well at school,
The learning's fun, her teachers "cool".
Did I tell you of the other night ?
Sweet darling child, a caring soul,
She woke quite late and in a fright.
To calm her down and put to flight
The nightmares that disturbed her sleep,
I tried a story, cuddles too but
Nothing would console poor Lu
In desperation, what to do ?
We turned the television on.
You look askance, and rightly so,
Poor substitute for Mother's love or
Father's kisses. Normally I'd never do it
But we had spent the evening out,
It was a birthday treat. That's
Right, "Another year, another wrinkle",
Laugh then if you must ! Pat's
Teased as only husbands can,
But just you wait, he's thirty two
In three months time; I have a plan.
But anyhow as I was saying,
Eleven at night and I was playing
The "One Hundred and One Dalmation's" tape.
And little Lulu drifted off
Just as they carried the puppies off.
Next morning we awoke to find
The little madam, arms entwined
About her stuffed Dalmation pup.
But not in bed, she'd woken up,
Half sleepily recalled the plight,
From video played the previous night,
Of dogs in need of ransom money.
She'd opened the window, it wasn't funny,
And scrambled somehow into the tree;
I tell you it really frightened me
To think she could have fallen. Still,
To tree house safely from window cill,
With blanket around her, money in one hand,
Puppy the other, she sought to stand
Up to Cruella De Ville.
You have to admire her courage and pluck,
Fortunately though once there she was stuck.
Pat fitted a padlock as well as a Yale,
No doubt she tried, but to no avail
To open the door, or to climb back in
But fast asleep with her money tin
Near her we found her next morning.
When Jason awoke, still sleepy and yawning
And asked about the nights commotion,
Of Lu's departure, my emotion,
I had to tell him the noise was a dream;
He'd heard us return, car engine, me scream.
Well Pat, bless his heart, was larking about
You know how they get whenever their out
And had a few drinks. With amourous urge
He canoodled and goosed me, close by the verge.
Besides the young lad's not even four
If he knew of Lu's exploits you could be sure
He'd be out in the tree house with her next time.
One final twist to this whole pantomime
A crayoned note she left us to read
"Gone puppy hunting. Please can you feed
Jemima and Hector", the gerbils we bought her.
I've never known such a mischievous daughter.

Sonnets

written for competition never entered

One:
How like the stellar story seems our love;
The protostellar cloud of dust and gas
Turns burning fire, to banish empty void,
Becomes a mellow fine main-sequence star,
As nascent soul coalesces into life
Illuminates a world that's drakness else.
And, like our loves disintegrate or die,
Stay smoldering or pale away to naught;
A sun bloats wide, takes on a ruddy hue
Or late turns white, a dwarf now of itself,
Lest it collapses ever on itself
Becomes too dense for light or love's escape.
Through solar furnace, light and heat, comes life
Whilst life's true aspiration is to love.


Two:
Dwell not upon the cause of loves demise
Nor waste long hours in fruitless idle breath
In seeking out the cause of all those lies
Eschewing life and wishing only death.
You dared to open wide your trusting heart
And braved the world's derision at your feat.
When sophistry or cynics can impart
Love's awesome incredulity replete,
Then and only then will I give credence
To life that's not of loving first and last.
Yours is the triumph over all impedance
Yours the colours nailed bravely to te mast.
Sweet tortured soul of freshly broken heart,
Pain will but temper, stronger love impart.

Browning's Religious beliefs

Declared aethiest (and vegitarian) having read "Queen Mab" and dicsovered Shelley. Mother was Church of Scotland, hence Browning was brought up "Non-Conformist". Married in St. Marylebone church.

The themes within the body of his poetry at best obfuscate his beliefs, "hardly shall I tell my hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving" ('One Word More' from Men and Women). Rarely does he "speak in my true person". In "Development" from Asolando however, relating his first encounter with Homer's Illiad, it is suggested Browning's morality owes more to Homer and the classics than to the Bible, teaching "My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus’ son, A lie as Hell’s Gate, love my wedded wife, Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.". So was Browning neoplatonist perhaps ?

A poem entitled "Adam Lilith and Eve" might suggest a Jewish belief, few Christians would admit of a third person in the Garden of Eden, thats a Judaic tradition. "Cleon" concludes by saying of Christians "their doctine can be held by no sane man". Whilst perhaps Browning's most complete affirmation of belief is put into the mouth of "Rabbi Ben Ezra". So perhaps Jewish ?

The epilogue to Dramatis Pesonae, rarely for Browning written in the first person "Friends, I have seen through your eyes: now use mine! " , concludes "Become my universe that feels and knows." Echoed decades later by Carl Sagan in describing inteligent life as the universe trying to understand itself. So is this a Buddist tendancy ?

What were Brownings religious beliefs ?