Everything Changes

Everything Changes (you can’t count on any of the old certainties, these days – what’s happening?)

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold:

It’s all entropy, we’re told,

But you get to depend on the way things are,

And certainties that never fold.

But now everything’s changing:

It’s enough to make you feel faint.

They’ve finished the Forth Road Bridge:

They used up their last pot of paint.

And as they lock the brushes all away,

Packing in a big shed all of their kit,

I’d love to look up at the great structure,

And say: “here – you’ve missed a bit!”

They’re telling us GMT will be no more -

Greenwich is going to the dogs.

They’re running now on atomic clocks,

In Paris! – it’s all a plot by the Frogs!

They say there’s a new particle:

They’ve seen a bump in the data.

It might be the missing Higgs-Bosun:

I’m glad they found it sooner, not later.

They call it the “God Particle” -

They’re sure that it’s there -

It’s been missing for quite a while now,

They’re looking down the back of a chair.

The Universe is expanding faster,

Faster than ever they thought.

It’s getting ever so big you know,

And the edges are still being sought.

Then they said that it’s full of dark matter –

That’s stuff that nobody can see.

So how they know that it’s there,

Well, it’s way beyond me!

Now they’ve come up with a new theory,

Which has got them all ensnared.

It’s buggering up all of the physics -

E might no longer equal MC squared.

Neutrinos are travelling faster than light,

For which there’s no reason or rhyme,

And if that’s true, which I very much doubt,

It just makes a right horlicks of time.

But it could explain some phenomena,

Like Doctor Who and Star Wars and Stargate,

Why things happen in the wrong order,

And why the buses always run late.

No, the old certainties have gone,

But there’s things you can always depend on -

Like bills and debts, and like death and taxes,

And toast always falling butter-side down.

  

Then there’s new promises that seem to be true:

Politicians will always keep lying,

And peeling very strong onions,

Will always leave you sobbing and crying.

The banks and corporates will make big profits,

And of tax loopholes make the very most,

But when they owe you any money,

You can be sure – “the cheque’s in the post”!

They’ll fiddle the interest rates if they can,

They’ll lie, they’ll cheat and they’ll steal,

Then they’ll lie to cover their crimes,

And live on bonuses of a level surreal.

Men will always chase women and girls,

Who never seem to heed the old warning.

For the worst of their promises will be:

“Of course I’ll still love you in the morning”.

So, you see, despite all this frightening stuff,

The Universe – we can’t do without it -

It’ll all carry on just as before,

And there’s buggar all we can do about it!

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2018