Weekend Poetry

I got an email from Craig Gosling today, and he sent me some more poems! So, Weekend Poetry is back!

Archaeopteryx Nightmare

The Archaeopteryx is fictitious, shall I tell you why?
It doesn’t fit into God's plan; it's just a secular lie.
Fossils found all over the world are not the missing links.
As is said of fishy facts, something in Denmark stinks.

I can't let facts get in the way when I read my bible.
I can't let science confuse me, it's simply secular libel.
How can scales turn into feathers, a beak turn into teeth?
How can legs turn into wings, the concept causes me grief.

As I lay me down to sleep, I hope I don't have dreams
Of flying reptiles with feathers and teeth, animals so extreme.
The Archaeopteryx cannot exist, the bible tells me so.
Fossils are lies and science is wrong, this I truly know.

I'll stick to claims of Iron Age profits with faithful resolution
and ignore all those scientists who do swear by evolution.
Archaeopteryx, you never lived, you're not a missing link;
you don’t fit into God's plan, for those of us who don't think.

- Craig Gosling

Also, I see this has been bumped from the front page yet again... *sigh*
I'll have an actual blog entry sometime this week, once I sort through all the Google Alerts in my inbox I've ignored for the past two weeks. Ciao

Weekend Poetry: Coelacanth

Coelacanth

So, what's new coelacanth?
What have you done that we can't?
Four hundred million years ago you swam
before dinosaurs walked on land.

You had limbs that would be legs
before reptiles hatched from eggs.
If you had just one free wish
would you be a lobed-fin fish?

Not long ago you were unknown
except from fossils cast in stone.
We thought that you were long extinct,
your portrait drawn in books with ink.

And then on that fateful day
you were caught and put on display
for all the world to see and wonder,
to be dissected and pulled asunder.

There's much that's new since you were born.
Now there're creatures in human form.
I don't know how long they'll last,
but you'll be here when they've passed.

- Craig Gosling

Weekend Poetry: Devonian Blues

This week's evolution poem is actually a song called "Devonian Blues," written and performed by paleoartist Ray Troll. Click here to listen!

Devonian Blues

Thinking 'bout my momma and I'm thinking 'bout you
Got those Sarcopterygian Devonian Blues, yeah

My momma told me something few people know
We were all a bunch of fishes a long time ago

So wave your fins in the air it's plain to see
You are a wayward fish, and it will set you free

Out of the ooze and we were born to cruise
For burgers in cars with nothin' to lose, yeah

I can't really say if it was part of a plan
But it took millions of years to go from fish to man

Did we lose our way when we left that pool?
Well, sometimes I think so when we act like fools
(That's why I'm gonna tell you )

Yeah your momma oh she was a lobefinned fish
Oh my momma, she was a lobefinned fish

Every single girl and every little boy
Was born from the clan of the wayward Dipnoi

Don't let the preacher man spoil all the fun
But it took a lot more than six days to get this job done

Amphibians and reptiles, birds, mammals and man
All belong to the fish tribe, doncha' understand?

Yeah your momma, oh she was a lobefinned fish
Oh my momma, oh she was a lobefinned fish

It's all there, locked in the stone
The truth is told in fossilized bone, yeah

Fish had fingers, and fish had arms
Crawling onto land like a charm

Changing the world, the rocks revealing
On and on and on in the chain of being

Oh your momma, oh she was a lobefinned fish
Oh my momma, oh she was a lobefinned fish
(that's right)

Changing the world, the rocks revealing
On and on in the chain of being

- Ray Troll

Weekend Poetry: "Missing Link"

I'm going to start something new here. Every weekend I'll post a poem about evolution. Most of them will probably come from Darwin is My Hero: Poems about Science and Superstition by Craig Gosling (who I mentioned in a previous entry), but I'll try to dig up others. Or if you readers know of any, send them my way!

So here we go!

Missing Link

When looking for the missing link,
it's never where we usually think.
I'm told it looks something like me
and something like a chimpanzee.

I've heard it often has been found
by paleontologists, in the ground.
But, when its missing place is filled,
those who found it still are grilled
about the links before and after
that still are missing. What disaster!

Tracing far back our family tree
a primate lived who gave rise to me.
She lived so many years ago,
her true birthday we'll never know.

But, I'm so glad that she stayed alive,
to begat enough that did survive,
so I could arrive upon the scene,
a hundred percent human-being.

- Craig Gosling