Poem: "The Absent-Bodied Professor"
This poem from the March 2009 Poetry Fishbowl was prompted and sponsored by janetmiles. If you haven't already done so, you may want to read the history of the main character. I don't often write steampunk, but I had fun with this.
The Absent-Bodied Professor
Josiah Carberry stepped into this world
in 1929, leaving his first footprints
on a bulletin board in Brown University.
He annoyed newspapers and journals.
He had adventures and wrote articles.
He became a friend of the library,
donating $101.01 for funding and
designating every Friday the 13th
as “Carberry Day,” when patrons
should make donations for the purchase of
“such books as Professor Carberry
might or might not approve of.”
His contributions to the field of psychoceramics -
the study of cracked pots - are essential to
both academics and politics.
And to think we might have none of this,
were it not for the fact that, in the universe next door,
he invented the steampunk stardrive engine
with its odd tendency to create carbonite copies of its inventor
and scatter them across the timelines like leaves.
The Absent-Bodied Professor
Josiah Carberry stepped into this world
in 1929, leaving his first footprints
on a bulletin board in Brown University.
He annoyed newspapers and journals.
He had adventures and wrote articles.
He became a friend of the library,
donating $101.01 for funding and
designating every Friday the 13th
as “Carberry Day,” when patrons
should make donations for the purchase of
“such books as Professor Carberry
might or might not approve of.”
His contributions to the field of psychoceramics -
the study of cracked pots - are essential to
both academics and politics.
And to think we might have none of this,
were it not for the fact that, in the universe next door,
he invented the steampunk stardrive engine
with its odd tendency to create carbonite copies of its inventor
and scatter them across the timelines like leaves.