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Poetry

Einstein’s Cosmic Hangover

by Roger Caldwell

It’s hard this morning to convert
mass to energy, since getting out of bed
is like crossing the universe itself.
What’s wrong? It seems as if my head

has been splitting atoms all night long.
If there’s a dense dark nucleus at the core
so much of me is wasted space:
did I have too much to drink the night before?

My mind is whirling round as if
on far-flung orbits of electrons, and perhaps
a strong and not a weak force holds my body down.
Am I in a state of gravitational collapse?

The energy within me of a thousand suns
would not suffice to throw the duvet off.
I have imploded like a neutron star.
The alarum-bell rings, but hasn’t strength enough

to rouse my inert state. I’m past my stellar phase.
I am no particle with charm, or charge, or spin.
My amplitude, velocity and wavelength equal nil.
A packet of neutrinos now would do me in.

I’m shrunk within my event horizon.
Let nothing now disturb me in my starless night.
There’s no such thing as morning. Let me dream instead
I am travelling to infinity on a beam of light.

Roger Caldwell is a writer living in Essex. His book of philosophical poetry This Being Eden (2001) is published by Peterloo Poets.