Scale

Some clever people in this world,
with too much time but little sense,
can carve The Gettysburg Address
into a tiny grain of rice.

I had a go at this myself,
but chose a more familiar piece
to begin my carving career:
track seven from The Queen is Dead.

And things went pretty well, at first:
I bought my tools, I bought my rice,
then checked the lyrics just in case
I'd misremembered any lines.

But then I started on the carving,
and this is where my scheme collapsed,
not once, but every single time
I hit the chisel with my hammer.

The rice would snap, or sometimes crack,
and thirty-seven minutes in
I had my carving revelation:
embrace defeat; at least you've earned it.

I threw away my bluntish tools,
I swept up all the broken rice,
and wrote Bigmouth Strikes Again
across the sky, with my finger.

(17th July 2013, Hythe)