Stemistry lab

Lithium-free therapy

The nanobot injected into the manic patient –
Call it a parasol on wheels,
Furled, ready to dart
In sheer cheerlessness.

It has rights to curable aesthetics.
Wisps and rotating teeth
Power it
Through wibble-wabble membranes.

Rivets, rods, ruffles
Hinged upon spirited efficiency.

Radiance. Twinkling. Unlight –
Exuberance-bamboozling
Squishing back serotonin.

By Christopher Barnes

‘Through a glass darkly’

You’re not too good at scale,
or maybe it’s imagination
that’s at fault, but you can’t do
extremes of massive/miniscule, see
Swaledale, rather than the universe,
as huge; for tiny, nothing smaller
than a grain of wheat, a speck of dust.

So, scrutinise the latter as you must,
first, with the naked eye, then through
an ever more powerful microscope.
Would you see hills, farms, sheep, cows,
a valley with a river, dry stone walls,
skeletons of chapels, trees, textures,
vivid colours, detailed stratifications?

Or might it be like Swaledale
on a grey November day, in low mist,
infinite and blurred into one, like the
chaos before the world was formed
from a nanospeck in its creator’s eye?

By Marilyn Longstaff

Nano-focus™

I am hacked. I am marketed and bullied
into emotional focus. There is nothing

engineered about me – except my emotional response.
I am inhibited. I am immune, unfeeling,

not even sorry to say that I don’t love you any more.
I am having the time of my life.

By Stevie Ronnie

Nanorobotic horses

reduced to bare essentials:
legs, tail, long neck, mane,
essence of horse – Uffington
prehistoric writ small; colour,
chalk white; designed to pull
nano ploughs, go nano trekking,
eat nano oats, cart nano hay,

become grey goo,
self-replicating, wild –
not bending to the will of
nano hunters, nano farmers,
nano circus ringmasters –
galloping minus nano reins,
nano bit, nano shoes.

By Marilyn Longstaff

Nanotick!

Little Bot inside my bod
Keep me well until I drop
Really though I’ll go nowhere
While you remain in here
Will my body wither and die
When my soul and heart do cry
For an end to worldly joys and pains
‘I’ve seen enough,’ I shout in vain
My physical may be quite well
But my faculties are worn to hell
My soul is shot and needs to rest
As they say, ‘happens to the best’
Like the rat stuck in the wheel
No new sensations can I feel
Instead of progress each new day
I find a numbness comes my way
Earth to earth and ashes to ashes
Gave us chance to share the rations
That our world has to offer
And those in individual coffers
Enjoying a mix of new and old
Skimming bits that leave us cold
But now we’ve dragged along together
When a lifetime really lasts forever
We’ve tasted long the wine of youth
Even though we’re ‘long in t’tooth’
An’ all the natural pace and rhythm
Giving us our place in the system
A gut reeling rollercoaster of life
With ups an’ downs that felt so right
Has finally just become
One endless clicking metronome

By Beverley Addy

Precision engineered nano enthusiasm

Sick of your workforce – a tardy, cynical, scruffy, jaded, slumped and sometimes smelly crew, hunching over computers or lounging on the end of a phone – fear not. Here at Nanosolutions, we have engineered utilisable material from verified certifiable enthusiasts, to create Nanoenthuse. Packaged in a handy spray can and labelled Enthufresh, a quick squirt every day will improve productivity, dispel gloom and even make the workplace more fragrant.

By Marilyn Longstaff

The elegant dot

A speck of power and might.
Selective, seductive, but never fickle.
Who has it?

I have it, they gave it to me
And it’s deep within myself.

I disgusts me, but I respect it.
I cannot love it, and
I am afraid of it.

I must not lose it.
Its power is infallible.
There is no way back and I must accept it.

But I tremble as I lose control to its strength.

Brain, Lung, Eye, Blood, Skin
All succumb – but I must not lose it.

For nothing can snatch me back.

By Barbara Gordon

The poetry of atoms

It’s new, but not fresh or pure.
Wavelengths of light,
Without the visible spectrum

Alive but quietly dead.
Hopes, wishes, needs
Wrapped in the poetry of
Atoms.

Small to large, to huge, to massive.
Power densities tiny, but crafted
With the strength to change
Power destinies

The indestructible logic
Of flawless molecules

By Barbara Gordon