(Guglielmo Marconi)
"In a Catholic country where the sky is blue
and clouds look like cherubs' vestiges,
one daily receives through the air a few
wordless but clear messages .
Regular speech has its boring spoils :
it leads to more speech, to violence ,
it looks like spaghetti, it also coils.
That's why I've built the wireless!"
1902. Just another bland
peaceful year. They dissect a gland
and discover hormones . And a hormone
once discovered is never gone.
The Boer War (ten thousand dead) is over.
Elsewhere, kind Europeans offer
railroad chains to a noble savage.
A stork leaves a bundle in a Persian cabbage
patch , and the tag reads "Khomeini." Greeks, Serbs , Croats ,
and Bulgars are at each others' throats.
Claude Monet paints bridges nevertheless.
The population of the U .S.
is approximately 76
million : all of them having sex
to affect our present rent .
Plus Teddy Roosevelt's the President.
The man of the year is Arthur Conan Doyle ,
a writer. The subjects of his great toil
are a private dick and a paunchy doc;
occasionally, a dog.
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"Imagine the worst : your subconscious is
as dull as your conscience. And you, a noble
soul , grab a Luger and make Swiss cheese
out of your skull. Better take my novel
about the Hound of the Baskervilles!
It'll save a handful of your brain cells
