The Sad, Mad, Scientist November 28, 2009

I’m worried, Professor, you seem very ill.
Each day you appear to be thinner.
You lie there quite silently, perfectly still,
refusing your breakfast and dinner.
I know that your submarine sunroof went wrong
and drowned quite a number of men.
The balsa-wood barbecue didn’t last long,
but get up and try, try again.
Your toilet-seat microphone works very well;
poor mother felt sick when I tried it.
The clockwork umbrella will certainly sell,
though grandma is still trapped inside it.
So, don’t be unhappy, no, don’t be depressed,
your genius couldn’t be clearer.
I love your inventions, I’m truly impressed.
Each failure brings triumph nearer.
.
Paul Hughes, 2009

An Elementary Tongue Twister. November 14, 2009

There is hydrogen and helium,
then lithium, berilium,
boron, carbon, nitrogen
and oxygen (a gas).
There’s fluoride, neon, sodium,
a metal called “magnesium,”
another: “aluminium”
and silicon makes glass.
Phosphorus is poisonous
and sulphur is malodorous.
Chlorine keeps pools clean for us.
We use argon in lights.
Nineteenth comes potassium
and twentieth is calcium.
There’s over ninety more of ‘em,
too many to recite.

.
You’ll find their names all written in
The Periodic Table.
I’ve listed twenty, to begin.
Learn more if you are able!

.

Paul Hughes 2009

Uncle Ted November 3, 2009

 

That funny smell is Uncle Ted,

for though he’s been a long time dead,

we didn’t bury him, instead,

we left him in his chair.

And though we dust him twice a day,

to keep the rats and flies away,

the Health and Safety people say

“he can’t keep sitting there!”

.

I like to watch him turning green,

but feel quite sad for Auntie Jean.

She does her best to keep him clean.

She scrapes away the mould.

And when, each night, she grabs his head

to drag his body up to bed,

she huffs and puffs and turns bright red,

for she is getting old.

.

One day Aunt Jean will wake up dead.

We’ll leave her resting in her bed,

Right next to poor old Uncle Ted,

their house, a mausoleum.

And I will make a thousand pounds

by selling hotdogs in the grounds,

when people come from all around

and pay me cash to see ‘em.

.

Paul Hughes, 2009