—Poems by Kevin Jones, Elk Grove
(Anonymous Photos)
STEAM PUNK REFLECTION
It’s all a fantasy,
But what is not?
A world that should have
Been but never was.
Kinder, slower, softer,
And with a concern
For the people,
And for the craft.
Airships made of hand-
Wrought metal, computers
Of bone
And mahogany.
A past, an imperialism,
That could be fixed
With a keystroke and
A backspace key.
Tennyson wrote about
“The ringing grooves
Of change”: railroads.
He got it wrong,
But now it seems
Not so very bad,
And maybe right.
STEAM PUNK BAD RHYME
You’d think
It would
Be a slam dunk
This steam punk.
But it’s
Not easy
Being creatively bold
About a world that
Never-was-old.
A difficult task:
Details gotta be right
(Even if they never were):
Or they’ll
Kick your ass.
They put us down,
Being creative
About Victoria,
Her time,
And the Crown.
But you got a better
Past that never was?
Then maybe I’d
Like to talk to you, cuz.
STEAM PUNK OPTOMETRY
All you need is a time machine
And a good pair of goggles.
—K.V. Jeter, who coined the term
“Steam Punk”
All my friends
Got these
Goggles,
Real long
Leather coats
And blunderbusses.
We’re not real sure where we’re
Goin’, but we’re lookin’
Real sincere.
And that’s what’s so real
Important as we’re
Looking through our goggles,
From the front,
Out and
To the rear.
STEAM PUNK MAGIC
My best act would be
Saw-the-woman in half.
But by the time we get
The generator started
And running, the robot
Band playing, she’s
Usually run off.
The audience too.
STEAM PUNK IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
I blame H. G. Wells
And his time machine:
Gave the Moorlocks
A chance
To come up and out.
Not bad folks, really.
I could growl
With the best of them.
Used a lot of sunscreen,
But otherwise,
Mostly like us.
Then they got
Cable. Fox News.
WHY YOU SELDOM SEE WEREWOLVES
ON AWARDS SHOWS
She was a shape shifter,
And you know they have
(In spite of what you
Might expect)
Absolutely no stage
Presence. And couldn’t
Care less about
How to work an audience.
People looked poised
To throw things. But what
Do you throw
At a shape shifter?
Today's LittleNip:
OTHER THAN THAT,
A FAIRLY NORMAL CHILDHOOD
Worse than being raised
By wolves: shape shifter.
Never knew what
You’d be wearing.
Always getting
Your tail stepped on.
_______________________
Our thanks to Kevin Jones for his poems today; in his new children's book, Captain Max and His Armored Steam Balloon (Adventure One), Max saves Theodore Roosevelt from evil Ninjas, but is late home for dinner. Life is tough for a 12-year-old steam punk visionary in 1909. The book is available for 99¢ from Amazon Kindle (ASIN: BOOSKKGYAA). The cover is shown below, and I took some photos and drawings from the 'Net to get us in the steam punk mood—perfect for a Friday, I'm thinking.......
—Medusa
