Sunday Scribblings had a prompt about Alchemy.Here is my take on it.
The Modern Alchemist
In his dark and moist and danky room,
The alchemist pursues his ancient trade:
To find the famed philosopher’s stone –
How the change from lead to gold is made.
Amid the cinnabar, galena and aqua regia
Pyrites, potash and smells infernal
He has two other research goals;
Ultimate wisdom and youth eternal.
Through the centuries, in malodorous labs,
The alchemist has been in honest pursuit
Of things now sold in monthly doses
By weaselly men in pinstriped suits.
The modern publisher, multinational,
Has turned type-metal into share gold
With magazines selling distilled wisdom
And lotions for eternal youth, or so we’re told.
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© J Cosmo Newbery
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malodorous -- don't hear that much and it's so fun to say
ReplyDeleteThe last stanza is brilliant and so true. "distilled wisdom" - very clever!
I like your take on this!
ReplyDeleteSo where does that leave us chemists?
ReplyDeleteclever and fantastically written, it's all been done, it's all been said but now it's legal so says Pharmaceutical ;)
ReplyDeleteWell done. Such well-dressed verse mitigates the curse of our purses looted by the pinstrip-suited.
ReplyDeleteLee: You chemists are left everywhere.
ReplyDeleteLorraine: Thank you.
Sometimes Sophia: Nothing mitigates that curse.
Talon: I think "Malodorous Lump" would make a good character in a Dickens novel.
LadyFi: I take and I give.
This is the best modern poetry piece I have come so far on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI could sense you are a real alchemist pursuing the craft. There is so much truth to what you just wrote (especially cinnabar, galena and aqua regia combined...wink).