Elementary Catastrophe Theory

Elementary catastrophe theory


Let us suppose that a is alone, at equilibrium,
making coffee perhaps, or gazing idly at the garden,
considering the hydrangea.  Tiny perturbations
can reset parameters.  Imagine a scenario
where a picks up the letter, lights a match,
drops the burning remnants in the fireplace.
Or envisage, instead, her reading, then regard the way
she wraps her arms around her, unexpectedly cold.
Observe while a hits zero, the tipping point:
things can go either way.

Let us now have b enter the equation, walk
down the path, ring the bell.  We’re on the cusp
of a catastrophe.   Our stable outcome
can leap in an unexpected direction.
a opens the door, stares at b, but b is intractable,
his face shaded by the trailing clematis.
a does not know where she stands; vary b, and the system
oscillates, attracting and repelling. 
She brings hand to mouth, remembers
sometimes the lilies, soft as fingertips, sometimes
the rough concrete grazing her face.

The future is unpredictable
where the exact state of a is unknown.
It may be that a will ponder past experience,
find it in herself to call the Alsatian to her side,
possess the gumption to slam the door. 
One can consider what happens if b holds constant
and a vacillates.  Observes a pitchfork bifurcation,
a choice of solution, neither of them good for a.
b will rip out the hydrangea, buy only herbal teabags,
chop down the clematis.  a will exist only
as a derivative of b, a reflection, scraping thick mud
from her shoes, pockets full of seeds
she will never plant.

(first published in Matter 10, October 2010)

Tollund Woman

 Tollund Woman

Six am: seclusion folds around me,
a winding-sheet, birds of memory trapped
and flapping inside my skin. I dance to Nerthus,
revel in the blaze of ergot.  The grass runs,
dribbles down my arms, weaves greenness
into baskets. I empty beechnuts into them,
sharp cornered caltrops, answered antiphons.
Silent, I drink more tea: brown, green,
keen to preserve myself, acid as bog
bodies. I lie in peat, eat soup of bristlegrass
and gold of pleasure, tie a hide belt
around my waist, a garrotte around my neck.
My head tips back, detached. I fill with water,
feathered thumbprint stained upon the sky.

(first published in Matter 10, October 2010)

Good morning

Good morning


It’s early; lattes and espressos scurry
on pavements stirred by meditating lorries.
I read Motion, how the horse came back with trailing reins,
how he waited twenty years for her to wake.
An Asian lad waves dust from the stone bench,
for his girl, I think, pretty with trailing scarves,
but sits on it himself. The path is splashed
with red - who are those who come in darkness
to spill their blood?  I buy bread
and sausages.

She sits with her friend, confides they never sent for me,
as if she’s missed the Second Coming.  Nearby
the woman murmurs to the microphone
she’s cunningly concealed inside her cardigan.
Old men swap coins outside the shop.  Their walking sticks
pound rhythms from the ground, shake twenty years
of footfalls from the cobblestones.
I buy books translated
from the Swedish.

First published in Obsessed with Pipework (No 52).

Discovering your shape

Discovering your shape


You know you are not spiralled
as a snail is spiralled, do not add coil
on deliberate coil with every painful season.
You think, but are not sure, that cuboid
is incorrect, though there are corners,
darkly musty, best left alone. 
You may be round,
forever rolling forward and back,
unable to find a surface on which
to settle - sometimes you twitch
into a dimple, like relativity’s sun
rolls into the dip of space-time, your own gravity
pulling the surroundings.  There you are
incapable of escape until the next tilt
flicks you free and sends you, slap
by ricochet, off into the hazy future.
Mostly you fear you are a plane,
unable to stand without leaning on another,
almost invisible if found edge on.

This poem won second prize in Sheffield Hallam University's Words on the Wall competition and can be seen gracing the wall of the cafe in the Adsetts Centre.  It has also been published in the journal Obsessed with Pipework (No 52).

Probably

This is the Collatz conjecture:
pick a number, one dear to you,
one you might allow to brew the coffee
in the morning.  If this number is even–
smooth like a sprung dance floor, even as the lake
at twilight when the wind has died–
divide it by two.  Nothing so straightforward
stays whole forever.  If the number is odd –
like his brother, the one who winks
and runs his hand along your shoulder –
multiply it by three (though that’s a party best avoided)
and add one, your sister-in-law perhaps,
with her raspberry-scented hair
and interesting eye shadow.  Apply these rules
over and over.  When you get to one, stop. 
Theory says you will always be reduced to this,
the only number you can rely on.