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Lamplight
(An Ode to the Nineteenth Century)
Everything is changing
Everything is new
This fire steady glows
Under our precise control
Lights our dusky, shadowed homes
Furnace, bellows, red hot glass
Wind the tungsten, vacuum flask
Engineered to our task
We toiled by day
And yearned by night
Wishing we could
Bottle firelight
And now these wires
That we have strung
Bring us the fire
Of a million captive suns
Electric light, an instrument
Read at night, hot filament
Winter like our summer went
Our house demands a glow at night
It burns and burns, no end in sight
Artificial firelight
We knew we might -
We bottled firelight
And now these wires
That we have strung
Bring us the fire
Of a million captive suns
Not much on - a president
If I was on an island sent
But radio's charter too there went
A larger island than you might think
Coal-fired gigawatts in the sink
All the lamps there start to blink
We knew we might -
We bottled firelight
And now these wires
That we have strung
Bring us the fire
Of a million captive suns
We stack our lights and concentrate -
Horizon higher, ever straight
Descend to share, acculturate
And in these noble city lights
Across the world, our harbour nights
Street corner pools, to our delight
We knew we might -
We bottled firelight
And now these wires
That we have strung
Bring us the fire
Of a million captive suns
Precision tubes of flimsy glass
This rarified and metal gas
Arcing vapor, everlast
Electron beams, our window pain
Someone's television sane
And we'll be up all night, again
We toiled by day
And yearned by night
Wishing we could
Bottle firelight
And now these wires
That we have strung
Bring us the fire
Of a million captive suns
Lamps and tubes and glassiness
Glowing just for the two of us
Keep our cave lit glorious
Just like you
Are glowing too
7/17/24
Demo - 8/15/24
© Huw Powell
humanthoughts.org
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