21st Century Breakdown

One of my favorite poems - " Five ways to kill a man" by Edwin Brock ends in a very realistic manner. I quote the last stanza below : 

"These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle 

of twentieth century, and leave him there."

Reading this poem, one embarks on a historical journey through time starting with the crucifixion of Jesus to the end of World War II. In the end, the poet dispenses with any traditional means to kill a man (or a woman or any living entity for that matter) by stating that living in the twentieth century is suffering in itself. One is exposed to mental dissatisfaction, diseases, and loads of other socio-economic problems. These are not 'cumbersome' ways in that it is not carried out by one person or a group or that its effect is instant. The entire humankind has played a role in each other's sufferings, leading to a slow, painful death. 

Edwin Brock had passed away before the start of the twenty-first century (in 1997). Nevertheless, the concluding stanza of his poem is still relevant in this century. I have tried my hand at writing a poem for the people thriving in the twenty-first century. The title of this blog has been naively borrowed from a famous song by Greenday. The title of my poem is Payback. 

Payback

Who could have told, long could one live?

Who could have thought, time had come to leave?

For a century later, with renewed vigor,

Worlds have revolted, wants us no longer.

For mankind had been a bitter germ,

With sins, worser than every turn.

Wars settled fences and nukes their might,

O’widowed wife, orphaned child and their plight!

Crimes akin wars, soul to soul,

Murders, abuse, and likes none could console.

Built both cars, swim and fly,

and many more things our thoughts defy.

So claimed the leader,” Nothing to fear,

Even if end is near,

Us shall eradicate

For science ‘twas adequate”.

Smirked in the corner, Mother Nature,

“Poor unthinking souls here,

You have done what you think enough

Let me show what methinks you deserve”

Thence came virus, all over the globe,

while some quakes started to unload.

Also, the ice, wanting to slide,

Sea was now a devil in disguise.

Bushfires unmuted for days past,

All locked with doors tightly cast.

Bays faced storms,

And fields with locust swarms.

As deaths go past unthought counts,

Hunger and cries, and tensions surmount.

The leader, whos’ plan seemed was clear,

Can now be seen, crying “Save O’lord us dear”

But He has seen, seen what may,

Only be called devils’ play.

Thus, we reap what we sow,

As all wait for wraths to forego.

                                                         Biswaraj Palit

Comment and let me know your thoughts!

Bye.

Physics poem

 The year 2020 was unique in so many ways. The whole world was busy fighting a never before seen virus outbreak. Streets were filled with ambulances and hospitals with dead bodies. Every sector, be it professional or academic, had come to a standstill. 

    Among all the chaos, my only solace was physics. I was rather enjoying the ample time available to read out-of-the-syllabi books (Feynman Lectures and MIT OCW), revisit unclear concepts, etc. One fine night, out of nowhere it struck me that I should write a poem on physics. The poem should touch upon all the great minds and their works that have shaped the world as we see it today. Thus I began:

Physics

Derived from Latin or Greek, some say

I rule the world from night to day.

Hardly a king, hardly a queen,

I was how Archimedes solved the gold thing.

All round and around the sun

Earth goes by Kepler’s cubic term

“No!” said The Church, “Its’ all flat,

Winged angels carry it on their back”.

Then came revolution, came a great law

Inverse square term became the new awe

Newton gave gravity, Coulomb gave electricity

Mustn’t forget how Hooke provided all their elasticity.

So asked Roentgen, what’s that green glow?

Later Marie and Pierre found it in Uranium, only low.

How charges behaved, which Maxwell knew,

In four compact equations easy and few.

But wheels of revolution sought to turn, 

Not of politics but scientific upturn

The atom was split, and so were the minds,

As electrons and protons were of another kind.

Planck came forward with an outrageous guess,

For blackbody radiation and something else.

None knew then, what quantization meant,

It took decades only after Schrödinger dreamt.

Parallel to these, ground was breaking,

For someone was working on speeds that were breathtaking.

Gravity was seemed quite wrong, to no one

But Einstein alone.

He gave a new theory, not much understood

Maybe after a century, someone would.

“Coming back to Hydrogen atom”, said Neils Bohr,

“Why not stationary orbits and solve Rutherford”.

Cat’s life hangs in balance with equal probabilities, claimed Erwin

“What are you getting at”? Einstein grins.

But came an equation, like nothing before,

Only a new mathematics could support it anymore

Determinism started to gather dust,

Now position will be certain at the momentum’s cost.

Quantum theory started becoming the story,

Along came many writing their own theory.

The atom went larger as they delved deeper,

Finding leptons, hadrons, bosons and all peculiar

Far in the east, a poor physicist,

Stopped in his tracks with a crazy insist.

A new kind of matter, then opened its gate,

They call it The Bose-Einstein condensate.

Fundamental forces named along,  

Gravitational, Electromagnetic, Weak and Strong.

As time went by, complexity arose,

So came Feynman, simplified in a prose.

His famous diagram was all one needed,

To realize how subatomic particles, did it

Lot about miniscule, what about outer space,

Did someone figure the relativity case?

Reached the invisible ripple and made a noise,

Coming from a black hole to LIGO’s sophisticated toys.

Followed by a greater news, only a blurry image,

Dark hole in the center, disk was orange.

So many scientists, so many stories,

I have failed to tell each of their glories.

So, forgive me all those,

Whose works I could not compose. 

Then asked a layman,” you must stop”,

Physics replied,” not until my breath drops”.

                                                                    Biswaraj Palit

9-6-2020

 

When I finished writing, I had only sent it to my then-girlfriend. I had no intentions of posting it on social media or any other platform. Delighted by the poem, she insisted that I post it on Facebook. Thus, it already exists on my FB wall long before I publish it through this blog. 

Thank you for the patient read. Hope you all like it. Let me know what you think of it in the comments.

Bye.