From: Alfred Lehmberg <Lehmberg@snowhill.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 12:54:28 -0600
Fwd Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 12:00:38 -0500
Subject: Alfred's Odd Ode #120

Apology to MW #120 (For March 30, 1997)

Give a kid who hates =91em a Pez candy.
Have him run a hundred meters out, and stop.
Have him hold up the candy so it masks what=92s behind,=20
As what=92s behind, you=92ll find, can take you down a drop!

Now quick as wink, like down a drain in a sink
Faster than light through the candy!
(Straight down the jaws, and just missing the claws)
(Of a life-force that thought it was dandy).

We are not confined =96 we=92ve left our galaxy behind! =20
(The stars zoom by too quickly to perceive.)
(In front a hot blue is too bright to suit you).
(To the rear a deepest red is not believed).

(In the middle a rainbow, so lush it=92s a pain-bow)
(A searing orange gives way to yellow, then through green.)
(Blue then begins, and the indigo spins)
(Into violet, *rich* beyond dreams).

Let me step down the gain, so as to ease the eye pain
Of seeing the universe so raw and open like a wound.
. . .Now, see you new galaxies fly by like bee=92s,
(You punch through the ether sans sound.)

Now . . .STOP! A lot of light years are behind us.
To the front a lot of light years are there still. . .
(Above, and behind frankly sucks at your mind)!
(To the right and the left =96 <sickening> thrill)!

Now back to the front, you can check if you want,
The gravity lens in Abell, 2218.
(It is there that a chasm puts weak knees in a spasm)
(The Grand Canyon . . . *to exponents of dreams*).

Ever been to the Canyon? Ever stood on the lip?
Do you remember that feeling of space?
Try as you will, you never could fill
That huge, and that glorious place!

Now take that grand feeling, so big you are reeling,
And move to the exponents place.
Then start adding nines until God would go blind
And that=92s what you=92re feeling with me out in space!

(The galaxies are twirling their singular swirling.)
(They dance a stellar tango outside thought.)
(They swoop and they crash, they are born, and then dashed)
(In a mind warping crunch where the firmaments wrought.)

Anything can happen out here, as it happens,
The laws of physics may, may not, apply.
We=92re a long way from home, and still not alone,
Our *watcher* came along for the ride. <*>

I=92ll leave you with _it_, must go back in a bit.
I left some shirts going in the dryer.=20
Treat _it_ with respect as it checks your intellect;
Though an _it_, you=92d say it functions a *little* higher.

Ask what it=92s writing, it=92s all done but the fighting.
Your paradigm=92s crushed, and misused.
You find that your ethos is useless as echoes --=20
Based as it was . . . on abuse.

			Lehmberg@snowhill.com

See =96 It brought you right back, no foolishness, no funny business.=20

For a snap shot of where we were, go to the Hubble page, and look-up :
HST~WFPC2 Gravitational Lens in Abell 2218 (PF95-14 ~ ST Scl OPO ~ April
5, 1995 ~ West Couch <UNSW>, NASA.=20

It=92s only black and white, but it=92s as real as a hot kiss at the end of
a very wet fist!

--=20
"I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite. What others see from
afar, I leave far behind me." - Giordano Bruno, while burning at the
fundamentalist's stake, and winking at the watcher.