The Golden Soup

AI, Clowder’s Golden Soup coffeehouse, London, ca. 1702

And spoil till time and tides go bump,

The shrimpy life of E*** M***,

The putrid cod of Milord T****.

—Praise-God Barebone, Reply to the Impertinent and Frivolous Answer of E.M. to the Discourse of P.D. (1677).

"What devil language is that? Is it double Dutch coiled against the sun?”

John Davis, Travels . . . in the United States of America (1803)

Said Gulliver* to Godfrey William,*

By happenstance they chanced to meet

at Clowder’s Coffeehouse, Bow Street,

Covent Garden, called by some

La soupe d’Or—the Golden Soup,

each petting a cat amid the clutter,

they spoke a French and Latin mutter,

for Leibniz knew scant English,

and Gulliver little versed in Double Dutch:

“Fontenelle† avers ‘in Old times all

People were born Poets. . . . [T]hey

had no sooner drank a little freely,

but they made Verses; they had no

sooner cast their eyes on a Handsom [sic]

Woman, but they were all Poesy,

and their very common discours

fell naturally into Feet and Rhime:

. . . But now [alack!] this Poetick

Genius has deserted mankind.’

How comes it then, Sir, that you write only prose?”

“Fontanelle's a rake-hell, Heaven knows,”

Godfrey William replied. “I hear tell

that encountering the delectable Minette‡ when ninety, he audaciously observed:

‘Ah! Mademoiselle,

si je n’avais que quatre-vingts ans !’††

He's a unique specimen, though, of freedom of the will—it does exist, you know,

but you must want it—and few do;

Newton himself’s a Fifth Monarchy Man

For all his mathematical and optic works,

And looks to Christ’s Second Coming

Much as old Praise-God Barebone did."‡‡

"Ma foi!" said Gulliver. "You've got that gossip wrong! The fair Minette herself this day

will not be born for twenty year!

Perhaps you're thinking of her sainted dam?"

"Beg pardon!" GW exclaimed. "Damn

my eyes, if so!! But Popular Mechanics will one day prove that time's an illusion—and Einstein badly mixes things up, methinks, by calling luck a scam!"***

* Jonathan Swift (1667–1745).

† Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), co-discoverer with Isaac Newton of the infinitesimal calculus (on this meeting, see Petrus Tornarius, Imaginary Conversations).

‡ Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle (1657–1757), https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Le_Bovier_de_Fontenelle

** "Minette" = Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius (1722–1800).

†† “Oh, Madame, if I were but eighty again!”

‡‡ Praise-God Barebone (1598–1679); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise-God_Barebone

***https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a61021621/is-time-just-an-illusion/

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Hrodberht Opts for Briggs & Stratton

His name means Glorious One, Bright Fame.

In the far future he’ll be called Robert;

then Robin (Hood?), then Bob, leader of the "Vain Boys," who fix gas lawn mowers on Wingnut and Main.

But that f****** future's yet to come—

For now he’s chieftain of the Alemanni (“all men")

Who’ve just bought a shipload of feral wives

from Orkney off a gloating me-too Viking crew

signed up to be the new East Roman

emperor’s guards—they say they’ll have hotties

aplenty out there in Constantinople,

the greatest city in the world.

Not like these ropey Scots whores, who’ve shown balls already,

be it noted, kicking Gaulish butt—a fine

set of lovelies for Hrodberht’s rapist gang—

"Once they’ve settled down."

(Not that that'll ever happen!)

Meanwhile, what the f***'s

to be done about King Atilla, bitch,

who’s invaded North Rhine–Westphalia

with a hundred thousand wog horse archers?

First, homing in like a hornet,

then honing down like a plane,

half slanted-eyed Mongols, the rest

Vandals, Ostrogoths, Suebi—who at least,

jabber in an Indo-European tongue.

The Chinese call them the Xiongnu.

Here, white guys call them Huns.

And Hrodberht must henceforth pay them tribute

—some of the loot might do from

Lutetia's sacking, which that city's bourgeois-bohème (or bo-bo) crew,

call Civitas Parisiorum,

aka "the City of the Parisii."

Or perhaps something in the hopey nest egg bin?

Who, after all, needs a fake Roman silver

breastplate-helmet "twin set" anyhow

that Macronius himself may have worn,

that lousy, lying pissant Khazar had sworn.

On the other hand—through both hands, indeed—

Attila is said to crucify those too stingy

nailing them to the nearest sacred tree.

Moral

Better to ensure that Briggs & Stratton engines smoothly run!

Not even creeping Jesus can deny the unrelenting native Hun!

Thursday, January 30, 2025

The Hobgoblin Snoozes

The hobgoblin has been dreaming.

How long? Centuries at the least.

But that’s an exaggeration,

And who gives a damn? Hobgoblins

Don’t recognize time! It’s awake

Now—AI conjures up its squinty eye—

But soon rolls over with a sigh,

Returning to its habitual nighttime place

Those nightmare humans to efface.

No, was that it? What did the warning say?

With fleeting lapse, the goblin brain

Sinks back a-bed to snooze a bit again.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025