Progress

[Hawkman]

For the medical profession
one requires men with flare,
to advance the cause of science
you need guys like Burke and Hare.

[blank|verse]

Short and sweet, Hawk, although LitNet readers have come to expect something a bit lengthier from your good self - I'm sure there are a few more stanzas in this... now what rhymes with 'bodysnatchers'?! :)

[Silas Thorne]

:) hehe. Nice! Men like Burke and Hare probably advanced art too. If I remember Michelangelo and Da Vinci required access to corpses too to advance their own understanding of human anatomy, although I don't think they got them in this way.


'Progress' is a problematic term. Sometimes there are some pretty immoral business people and inventors who have sought to progress technology, although it is difficult to tell if it's progression or not sometimes. Take Thomas Midgley for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.

This humorous rhyme also makes me think of what advances were made on the back of some particularly 'evil' 'research', such as what a few Japanese scientists did in North-East China before the end of World War Two, or later on, studies like this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

[Silas Thorne]

Forgive me for this intrusion, hawkman. Your little poem is bounding ideas around in my head. :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Characters like Burke & Hare play a prominent role in Peter Ackroyd's The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein.

Much as I like your longer, more lyrical poems, it amused me to encounter you in this terse, sardonic mode.

[Hawkman]

Hi b/v and thanks for casting your gaze towards my brief skit. I think it might be possible to rhyme bodysnatchers with with a 2 syllable word hyphanated with catchers - lol but there are alternatives to bodyshnatchers, there's reserectionists which one could pair up with insurrectionists for example. If you want something longer from me I'll have to go on an inspiration hunt :D

Hi Silas, glad to give you a giggle. Yes I did know about Midgely and the Tuskege experiment, I even made reference to it in my screenplay, Dream of Evil, along with the father of rocketry, Wernher Von Braun. I also understand that even some of the evil Dr. Joseph Mengele's research actually contributed to the understanding and treatment of cold injuries and survival of exposure. Not a comfortable thought, this.

Thanks Prince. It is rather a horrible fact, or at least seems to be, that to be beneficial to humanitiy, it helps to be inhuman.

Live and be well - H

[AuntShecky]

Poetry topics come and go
Some are trendy--
others less so.
But from Hawkman,
brave lines throbbing-
comes grave robbing!


(Time for ol' Auntie to give it a rest.)

[Delta40]

ha ha! short and sweet and so true (makes me want to 'burke' someone!)

[Haunted]

I learned something new each day, and today it's the notoriety of Burke and Hare. What a paradox and how marvelously Hawk delivers it in just 4 lines. Bravo.

[Haunted]

I should also add that despite the dark humor, the poem is quite powerful in reminding us that sometimes the bad guys could also be the good guys, depending on perspective.

[Hawkman]

Auntie:

How versatile is the Hawk?

Those outlines graven in white chalk
can feed his muse and he'll not baulk,
even when the subject's grim -
it's all grist to the mill for him.

Sadly though, his muse is flagging
and his spirits somewhat sagging,
leaving him much less to say
on this, or any other day.

Delta: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it, but make sure you get a good price for the meat :D

Haunted: Thanks, always happy to elucidate and amuse :) But I wouldn't want you to think I thought there was any good in Dr. Jo, (heaven forbid) rather than saying bad guys can be good guys (regardless of perspective) I'd rather you considered that even the darkest clouds can have a silver lining. It's not an original thought mind:

"The evil that men do lives after them
the good is oft interred with their bones"

although the context was somewhat different. ;)

Live and be well - H