The Scientist

Daddy was an old skool scientist,
lighting his fags with Bunsen burners
(and very occasionally yours,
if he was feeling generous);
drinking brandy out of pipettes
filled from bottles labelled
Hydrochloric Acid.
When he invented something
it stayed invented, goddamn it!
When he discovered something,
it blew folks' tiny minds:
Peter Andre would shake
his head in naked wonder
while a particularly vile seagull
achieved immortality
and a small Cornish coastal village
slid into the sea.

Solids became liquids,
liquids became gases
and gases turned into
strawberry Hippopotamousse.

My daddy used to tell anyone
who came within winking distance:
"Science, it's a kind of magic,
cast in laboratory conditions;
a wondrous, thunderous experiment
in which we take sexy steps
to accept or reject hypotheses,
play our hunches, banish doubts
and clear up confusion
with Apparatus, Method,
Results and Conclusion."

B.R. 21/06/2020