GOING VIRAL

RNA transcribes
DNA to make blueprints
informing protein.
This step includes proof-reading
to fix or block mutations.

"RNA virus"
means one with no DNA,
only RNA
transcribing itself proof-free,
changing its story often.

It does much good, true.
But in my mind its whispers
turn reinforcements
to three-and-fourpence still -- spin
endlessly, maintain the war.

This was written in July 2020 and published online by Lifeology. It was an entry in their competition, which had been flagged up to me by Clare.

Searching for a subject, I came across a story in the local paper, which contained the paragraph:

"The virus is what is known as an RNA virus, which means it is prone to errors every time it replicates.  This means that reading -- or sequencing -- the virus's genetic code can provide valuable information on its biology and transmission." (Zayed 2020)

Clare's additional explanation of that process, with not too much fanciful moralising from me, powered a sequence of three tankas (a trademark form of mine). The third tanka draws on the apocryphal story, first found circa 1914, of the chain of military miscommunication that altered "Send reinforcements, I am going to advance" into "Send three and fourpence, I am going to a dance". When I was a kid in the 1960s, that modification was still given as an example of what the game 'Chinese whispers' ('Telephone' across the pond) was about, but the UK's decimalisation of its currency has since rendered the story even more obsolete. What pair of phrases do people use to illustrate the game now?

I forget how I lost sight of the poem, but having come across it again, I might as well add it to my blog of published work..

Zayed, A. 'Pinpointing virus ancestry helps hospital tackle Covid.' Cambridge news, 16 July 2020, p.7.

Ledbury and John Masefield

 More cargoes

Ledbury Masefield's "once upon a time"

has a tall ship, becalmed in Panama,

find new work -- crew enriched above a dime,

and a morning's incredible bazaar:


bananas, raisins, dried figs, melon seeds,

paint, peas, calico, silk, rum, bottled ale,

sweets, lamps, bowls, candles, shoes for joys and needs,

casked beef and pork, and cotton by the bale,


cocoa, tea, oilskins, rugs, blankets, sea-boots,

candles, knives, nutmeg graters, soap and matches,

fiddles, melodeons, whistles, brooms, flutes,

green and grey parrots, kittens as rat catchers,


a talking monkey. Tale and ship are tall.

What goods are yours, Ledbury carnival?




This poem was written at the request of our friend Robin Hiseman for the programme of this year's Ledbury carnival. He serves on the carnival committee.

The event's theme this year was "Once upon a time". Knowing that Ledbury was the birthplace of the poet John Masefield (1878-1967; Poet Laureate from 1930), I thought I'd find what use he'd made of the phrase. I have a 1923 volume of his Collected poems, already extensive by that date, and "once upon a time" doesn't appear in the book's index of first lines. Similar phrases do occur, but none of their poems was suitable.

So I looked online. And a hunt for "John Masefield" with "once upon a time", both phrases being sealed between quotes, brought up the chapter 'A sailor's yarn' in his prose collection A mainsail haul. It begins:

"Once upon a time there was a clipper ship called the Mary, and she was lying in Panama waiting for a freight."

If my poem gives you any appetite for the rest of the story, follow the link above!

You'll have noticed that the 150th anniversary of Masefield's birth will occur a couple of years from now. Ledbury Town Council is already making plans for the celebration. Another link to keep an eye on.

Lord Noel-Buxton

 LORD NOEL-BUXTON

who found fame in tracing shallow paths across great rivers

Lord Noel-Buxton was a peer
who forded rivers with no fear
and fashioned chapter ends as though
doing it on the radio.

Water-writ fame! His Humber ford,
not on Brough Haven's tourist board,
yet inspires track of his designs
by bridge and in East Anglia Bylines.

This imitation of Hilaire Belloc's cautionary tales (specifically the ones about Lord Lundy and in the 1911 book More peers) was written in connection with an East Anglia bylines article. For EAB's series on the twelve days of Christmas and their gifts, I covered the ten lords a-leaping, and revisited the story of Rufus Alexander Buxton, 2nd Baron Noel-Buxton of Aylsham (1917-1980): his life in general, this time, not just how he forded the Humber in 1953. That exploit was followed, from the safety of a bridge, by Clare and me seventy years later. Click on the links for explanations of how Brough Haven's tourist board and doing it on the radio come into it at all.

And of course I reiterate the 2023 plug for the Bylines network of publications.