(Dedicated to my father)
The wise Hippocrates of humours wrote
(Viz: choler, melancholy, blood and phlegm)
These fluids the four temperaments denote,
And we in us should try to balance them.
Today, its plain the third and fourth prevail –
The practical and scientific kinds –
While the romantic and nostalgic fail
To move pragmatic hearts, promethean minds.
That’s why an element of those who feel
The earth by Frankenstein is being run
Is bent on hurting his Achilles’ heel,
When hunts he something new beneath the sun.
Meantime our Mother Nature’s not amused
To see her sense of humour so abused.
Jerusalem
12 May 2006